A Gentleman from the Wars.

I need hardly say that Sam was sorry when the two days which he had allowed himself for his visit were over. But that evening, when he mentioned the fact that he was going away in the morning, the Captain, Alice, and Jim, all pressed him so eagerly to stay another week, that he consented; the more as there was no earthly reason he knew of why he should go home.

And the second morning from that on which he should have been at home, going out to the stable before breakfast, he saw his father come riding over the plain, and, going to meet him, found that he, too, meditated a visit to the Captain.

“I thought you were come after me, father,” said Sam. “By the bye, do you know that the Captain’s daughter, Miss Alice, is come home?”

“Indeed!” said the Major; “and what sort of a body is she?”

“Oh, she is well enough. Something like Jim. Plays very well on the piano, and all that sort of thing, you know. Sings too.”

“Is she pretty?” asked the Major.

“Oh, well, I suppose she is,” said Sam. “Yes; I should say that a great many people would consider her pretty.”

They had arrived at the door, and the groom had taken the Major’s horse, when Alice suddenly stepped out and confronted them.

The Major had been prepared to see a pretty girl, but he was by no means prepared for such a radiant, lovely, blushing creature as stepped out of the darkness into the fresh morning to greet him, clothed in white, bareheaded, with

“A single rose in her hair.”

As he told his wife, a few days after, he was struck “all of a heap;” and Sam heard him whisper to himself, “By Jove!” before he went up to Alice and spoke.

“My dear young lady, you and I ought not to be strangers, for I recognise you from my recollections of your mother. Can you guess who I am?”

“I recognise you from my recollections of your son, sir,” said Alice, with a sly look at Sam; “I should say that you were Major Buckley.”

The Major laughed, and, taking her hand, carried it to his lips: a piece of old-fashioned courtesy she had never experienced before, and which won her heart amazingly.

“Come, come, Buckley!” said the quiet voice of Captain Brentwood from the dark passage; “what are you at there with my daughter? I shall have to call out and fight some of you young fellows yet, I see.”

Alice went in past her father, stopping to give him a kiss, and disappeared into the breakfast-room. The Captain came out, and shook hands warmly with the Major, and said,

“What do you think of her — eh?”

“I never saw such beauty before,” answered the Major; “never, by Jove! I tell you what, Brentwood, I wish she could come out this season in London. Why, she might marry a duke.”

“Let us get her a rouge-pot and a French governess, and send her home by the next ship; eh, Buckley?” said the Captain, with his most sardonic smile. “She would be the better for a little polishing; wouldn’t she, eh? Too hoydenish and forward, I am afraid; too fond of speaking the truth. Let’s have her taught to amble, and mince, and —— Bah, come to breakfast!”

The Major laughed heartily at this tirade of the Captain’s. He was fond of teasing him, and I believe the Captain liked to be teased by him.

“And what are you three going to do with yourselves today, eh?” asked the Captain at breakfast. “It is a matter of total indifference to me, so long as you take yourselves off somewhere, and leave me in peace.”

Alice was spokesman:—“We are going up to the Limestone Gates; Mr. Samuel Buckley has expressed a desire to see them, and so Jim and I thought of taking him there.”

This was rather a jesuitical speech. The expedition to the Limestone Gates involved a long ride through very pretty scenery, which she herself had proposed. As for Sam, bless you! he didn’t care whether they rode east, west, north, or south, so long as he rode beside her; however, having got his cue, he expressed a strong wish to examine, geologically, the great band of limestone which alternated with the slate towards the mountains, the more particularly as he knew that the Captain and the Major intended to ride out in another direction, to examine some new netting for sheep-yards which the Captain had imported.

If Major Buckley thought Alice beautiful as he had seen her in the morning, he did not think her less so when she was seated on a beautiful little horse, which she rode gracefully and courageously, in a blue ridinghabit, and a sweet little grey hat with a plume of companion’s feathers hanging down on one side. The cockatoo was on the door-step to see her start, and talked so incessantly in his excitement, that even when the magpie assaulted him and pulled a feather out of his tail, he could not be quiet. Sam’s horse Widderin capered with delight, and Sam’s dog Rover coursed far and wide before them, with joyful bark. So they three went off through the summer’s day as happy as though all life were one great summer’s holiday, and there were no storms below the horizon to rise and overwhelm them; through the grassy flat, where the quail whirred before them, and dropped again as if shot; across the low rolling forest land, where a million parrots fled whistling to and fro, like jewels, in the sun; past the old stockyard, past the sheep-wash hut, and then through forest which grew each moment more dense and lofty, along the faint and narrow track which led into one of the most abrupt and romantic gullies which pierce the Australian Alps.

All this became classic ground to them afterwards, and the causes which made it so were now gathering to their fulfilment, even now, while these three were making happy holiday together, little dreaming of what was to come. Afterwards, years after, they three came and looked on this valley again; not as now, with laughter and jokes, but silently, speaking in whispers, as though they feared to wake the dead.

The road they followed, suddenly rising from the forest, took over the shoulder of a rocky hill, and then, plunging down again, followed a little running creek up to where a great ridge of slate, crossing the valley, hemmed them in on either side, leaving only room for the creek and the road. Following it further, the glen opened out, sweeping away right and left in broad curves, while straight before them, a quarter of a mile distant, there rose out of the low scrub and fern a mighty wall of limestone, utterly barring all further progress save in a single spot to the left, where the vast grey wall was split, giving a glimpse of another glen beyond. This great natural cleft was the limestone gate which they had come to see, and which was rendered the more wonderful by a tall pinnacle of rock, which stood in the centre of the gap about 300 feet in height, not unlike one of the same kind in Dovedale.

“I don’t think I ever saw anything so beautiful,” said Alice. “How fine that spire of rock is, shooting up from the feathered shrubs at the base! I will come here some day and try to draw it.”

“Wait a minute,” said Jim; “you have not seen half yet.”

He led them through the narrow pass, among the great boulders which lined the creek. The instant they came beyond, a wind, icy cold, struck upon their cheeks, and Alice, dropping her reins, uttered a cry of awe and wonder, and Sam too exclaimed aloud; for before them, partly seen through crowded tree stems, and partly towering above the forest, lay a vast level wall of snow, flecked here and there by the purple shadow of some flying summer cloud.

A sight so vast and magnificent held them silent for a little; then suddenly, Jim, looking at Alice, saw that she was shivering.

“What is the matter, Alice, my dear?” he said; “let us come away; the snow-wind is too much for you.”

“Oh! it is not that!” she said. “Somebody is walking over my grave.”

“Oh, that’s all!” said Jim; “they are always at it with me, in cold weather. Let ’em. It won’t hurt, that I know of.”

But they turned homeward nevertheless; and coming through the rock walls again, Jim said,

“Sam, what was that battle the Doctor and you were reading about one day, and you told me all about it afterwards, you know?”

“Malplacquet?”

“No; something like that, though. Where they got bailed up among the rocks, you know, and fought till they were all killed.”

“Thermopylae?”

“Ah! This must be just such another place, I should think.”

“Thermopylae was by the sea-shore,” said Alice.

“Now, I should imagine,” said Sam, pointing to the natural glacis formed by the decay of the great wall which they had seen fronting them as they came up, “that a few determined men with rifles, posted among those fern-trees, could make a stand against almost any force.”

“But, Sam,” said Jim, “they might be cut up by cavalry. Horses could travel right up the face of the slope there. Now, suppose a gang of bushrangers in that fern-scrub; do you think an equal number of police could not turn them out of it? Why, I have seen the place where Moppy’s gang turned and fought Desborough on the Macquarrie. It was stronger than this, and yet — you know what he did with them, only kept one small one for hanging, as he elegantly expressed it.”

“But I ain’t talking of bushrangers,” said Sam. “I mean such fellows as the Americans in the War of Independence. See what a dance they led our troops with their bushfighting.”

“I wonder if there will ever be a War of Independence here,” said Alice.

“I know which side I should be on, if there was,” said Sam.

“Which would that be?” asked Jim.

“My dear friend,” said Sam, testily, “how can you, an officer’s son, ask me, an officer’s son, such a question? The King’s (I beg pardon, the Queen’s) side, of course.”

“And so would I,” said Jim, “if it came to that, you know.”

“You would never have the honour of speaking to your sweet sister again, if you were not,” said Alice.

“But I don’t think those Americans were in the wrong; do you, Miss Brentwood?” said Sam.

“Why no; I don’t suppose that such a man as General Washington, for instance, would have had much to do with them if they had been.”

“However,” said Sam, “we are talking of what will never occur here. To begin with, we could never stand alone against a great naval power. They would shut us up here to starve. We have everything to lose, and nothing to gain by a separation. I would hardly like myself, for the sake of a few extra pounds taxes, to sell my birthright as an Englishman.”

“Conceive,” said Alice, “being in some great European city, and being asked if you were British, having to say, No!”

They were coming through the lower pass, and turned to look back on the beautiful rock-walled amphitheatre, sleeping peaceful and still under the afternoon sun. The next time (so it happened) that Sam and Jim looked at that scene together, was under very different circumstances. Now the fronds of the ferntrees were scarce moved in the summer’s breeze, and all was silent as the grave. They saw it again; — when every fern tuft blazed with musketry, and the ancient cliffs echoed with the shouts of fighting, and the screams of dying men and horses.

“It is very early,” said Alice. “Let us ride to the left, and see the great waterfall you speak of, Jim.”

It was agreed. Instead of going home they turned through the forest, and debouched on the plains about two miles above Garoopna, and, holding their course to the river, came to it at a place where a great trap dike, crossing, formed a waterfall, over which the river, now full with melting snow, fell in magnificent confusion. They stood watching the grand scene with delight for a short time, and then, crossing the river by a broad, shallow ford, held their way homeward, along the eastern and more level bank, sometimes reining up their horses to gaze into the tremendous glen below them, and watch the river crawling on through many impediments, and beginning to show a golden light in its larger pools beneath the sloping, westering sun.

Just as they sighted home, on the opposite side of the river, they perceived two horsemen before them, evidently on the track between Major Buckley’s and Garoopna. They pushed on to “overhaul them,” and found that it was Doctor Mulhaus, whom they received with boisterous welcome, and a tall, handsome young gentleman, a stranger.

“A young gentleman, Sam,” said the Doctor, “Mr. Halbert by name, who arrived during your father’s absence with letters of introduction. I begged him to follow your father over here, and, as his own horse was knocked up, I mounted him at his own request on Jezebel, he preferring her to all the horses in the paddock on account of her beauty, after having been duly warned of her wickedness. But Mr. Halbert seems of the Centaur species, and rather to enjoy an extra chance of getting his neck broke.”

Politeness to strangers was one of the first articles of faith in the Buckley and Brentwood families; so the young folks were soon on the best of terms.

“Are you from Sydney way, Mr. Halbert?” said Sam.

“Indeed,” said the young man, “I have only landed in the country six weeks. I have got three years’ leave of absence from my regiment in India, and, if I can see a chance, I shall cut the army and settle here.”

“Oh!” said Alice, “are you a soldier, Mr. Halbert?”

“I have that honour, Miss Brentwood. I am a lieutenant in the Bengal Horse Artillery.”

“That is delightful. I am a soldier’s daughter, and Mr. Buckley here also, as you know, I suppose.”

“A soldier’s daughter, is he?” said impudent Jim. “A very fine girl too!”

Sam, and Jim too, had some disrespectful ideas about soldiers’ riding qualities; Sam could not help saying —

“I hope you will be careful with that mare, Mr. Halbert; I should not like a guest of ours to be damaged. She’s a desperate brute — I’m afraid of her myself.”

“I think I know the length of her ladyship’s foot,” said Halbert, laughing good-naturedly.

As they were speaking, they were passing through a narrow way in a wattle scrub. Suddenly a blundering kangaroo, with Rover in full chase, dashed right under the mare’s nose and set her plunging furiously. She tried to wheel round, but, finding herself checked, reared up three or four times, and at last seemed to stand on her hind legs, almost overbalancing herself.

Halbert sat like a statue till he saw there was a real chance of her falling back on him; then he slipped his right foot quickly out of the stirrup, and stood with his left toe in the iron, balancing himself till she was quieter; then he once more threw his leg across the saddle, and regained his seat, laughing.

Jim clapped his hands; “By Jove, Sam, we must get some of these army men to teach us to ride, after all!”

“We must do so,” said Sam. “If that had been you or I, Jim, with our rough clumsy hands, we should have had the mare back atop of us.”

“Indeed,” said Alice, “you are a splendid rider, Mr. Halbert: but don’t suppose, from Mr. Buckley’s account of himself, that he can’t ride well; I assure you we are all very proud of him. He can sit some bucking horses which very few men will attempt to mount.”

“And that same bucking, Miss Brentwood,” said Halbert, “is just what puzzles me utterly. I got on a bucking horse in Sydney the other day, and had an ignominious tumble in the sale-yard, to everybody’s great amusement.”

“We must give one another lessons, then, Mr. Halbert,” said Sam; —“but I can see already, that you have a much finer hand than I.”

Soon after they got home, where the rest of the party were watching for them, wondering at their late absence. Halbert was introduced to the Major by the Doctor, who said, “I deliver over to you a guest, a young conqueror from the Himalayas, and son of an old brother-warrior. If he now breaks his neck horse-riding, his death will not be at my door; I can now eat my dinner in peace.”

After dinner the three young ones, Sam, Alice, and Jim, gathered round the fire, leaving Halbert with the Major and the Captain talking military, and the Doctor looking over an abstruse mathematical calculation, with which Captain Brentwood was not altogether satisfied. Alice and Sam sat in chairs side by side, like Christians, but Jim lay on the floor, between the two, like a blackfellow; they talked in a low voice about the stranger.

“I say,” said Jim, “ain’t he a handsome chap, and can’t he ride? I dare say, he’s a devil to fight too — hear him tell how they pounded away at those Indians in that battle. I expect they’d have made a general of him before now, only he’s too young. Dad says he’s a very distinguished young officer. Alice, my dear, you should see the wound he’s got, a great seam all down his side. I saw it when he was changing his shirt in my room before dinner.”

“Poor fellow!” said Alice; “I like him very much. Don’t you, Mr. Buckley?”

“I like him exceedingly; — I hope he’ll stop with us,” continued Jim.

“And I also,” said Sam, “but what shall we do tomorrow?”

“Let’s have a hunt,” said Jim. “Halbert, have you ever been kangaroo hunting?”

“Never! — I want to go!”

“Well, we can have............