Mount Desolation

Carlton Dawe

Mount Desolation

EAN 8596547406341

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: [email protected]

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Before The Curtain

Chapter 2 The Curtain Goes Up

Chapter 3 Father And Daughter

Chapter 4 The Member For Billabong

Chapter 5 The Member Speaks

Chapter 6 Beneath The Stars

Chapter 7 How The Wooroota Bank Was Stuck Up

Chapter 8 An Interruption

Chapter 9 Surprises

Chapter 10 How The News Was Received

Chapter 11 Throw Your Hands Up!

Chapter 12 For Her Dear Sake

Chapter 13 The Squatter Goes Visiting

Chapter 14 The Cry Of The Curlew

Chapter 15 Beyond The Pale

Chapter 16 How The Wolf Went Forth

Chapter 17 Why Boomerang Was Kept Saddled

Chapter 18 The Chase

Chapter 19 Stanford’s Leap

Chapter 20 The Curtain Descends

THE END

"

Chapter 1

Before The Curtain

Table of Contents

THE sun, a dull, red, angry ball of fire, was sinking slowly behind the jagged peaks of Mount Desolation, flooding the great black rocks with an indescribable glory, and casting gaunt fantastic shadows on the plains below. The grasshoppers clicked loudly in the long grass, and the little lizards crept further out upon the granite ledges to escape the lengthening shadows. Above, in the steel-blue sky, whirled flocks of noisy parrots, while close to earth the air was filled with the hum of countless insects, all sighing, as it were, for the setting of that god which was their life. Shrill laughed the merry jackass; the magpie chattered to its heart’s content before it tucked its knowing head away beneath its wing; the blue bird and the more-pork had their say, the wombat crept from its hole to take a last peep, and the rabbit stopped in his headlong flight to look up at the great red god. The air, still warm, though tempered by approaching night, was laden with the perfume of wattle and honeysuckle, making it so delicious to inhale that one ceased to wonder why speechless Nature sobbed aloud. One great inarticulate cry went up to heaven; the sun sank behind the jagged peaks, and the silence of night fell upon the great plains.

Mount Desolation, as its name implies, was not in itself a very exhilarating object, being, in fact, a most gruesome and awe-inspiring monster. It was a huge barren mass of granite, rising some thousand feet above its surrounding alps—a thing of grim splendour and fascinating desolation. Seamed with deep black chasms, and strewn with iron-like boulders as slippery as blocks of ice, it presented formidable obstacles to its would-be assailant; and the people in the little town at its base rarely tempted fortune on its heights, but looked up from their thresholds at its great frowning brow and owned it master. To the children of the neighbourhood it was as mysterious as some mystic mountain of fairy lore, and they peopled its chasms with the ghosts of bygone generations of blacks, and with the presence of those immortals which we call sprites; and when the great white clouds rested on its grim summit, they used to say that God had come down to look upon his world. Oh, yes, there are children who dream even in the land of the Southern Cross, though their dreams have yet to be interpreted to them. The beauty we know so well is always the loveliest in our eyes. The strain of an old familiar song is the sweeter in our ear for our knowledge of its every note. The beauty of the earth is enhanced by guide-books.

Burke, the great explorer, who so soon after was to meet a fearful death away at Coopers Creek, was the original discoverer of this strange mountain, and from him it received its gloomy title. He had marched many days in the hope of finding the promised land, but upon climbing this forbidding mount such a scene of desolation met his view that he named the hill accordingly. But many a long, long year has passed since then, and grimy men with picks and shovels have scrambled over its every accessible part in search of gold; and those long-stretching, cheerless plains are now dotted with sheep and cattle; roads cut them at right angles, and the train to Sydney passes thirty miles to the south-west. Indeed, the member for this district, Mr. Martin Wingrove, has promised its inhabitants that they shall have a branch line running right up to the foot of the mountain, ay, right into Desolation itself, for such is the name of the township which nestles at the foot of the great black hill.

This village, or town, of Mount Desolation—for in Australia all villages are towns—was situated on the banks of a little stream which went by the name of the Warrigal (tradition telling of the native belief that a great black Warrigal was the deity of the stream), and had seen some strange scenes since the day Burke first looked down upon its site. At one time its ambition soared to that of chief town of the northeast, and when gold was discovered, and the diggers poured in by hundreds, it felt as though it were about to achieve that distinction. But alas for its hopes! The rush was but a poor thing after all. Two or three rich veins were discovered, but the alluvial diggings were not worth the trouble of working. Then began a general exodus; only those who had neither inclination nor power to move staying on. But with a cheerful heart the inhabitants turned from gold-digging to agriculture and pastoral farming, as a less precarious if comparatively unexciting method of subsistence; and upon the bosom of those bleak far-stretching plains, which seemed so ghastly and forbidding to the early explorer, thousands of sheep and cattle pastured, and the district had the reputation of being in a very flourishing condition.

Yet upon occasions there was much life even in Desolation, as its inhabitants called it—not, apparently, having time to use the word Mount—especially on Saturdays and race weeks. Any place in Australia that pretends to consideration can boast its racecourse, and it was not likely that such a thriving town as Desolation was going to be behind the times. As well might the mountain fall upon it and sweep it into chaos. It might boast of wealth, of luxury and learning, but unless it could also boast a racecourse it could have no pretensions to civilisation. It must have big names, too, for its races, such as Derby, Oaks, St. Leger; everything that could lend dignity to the gathering was freely patronised. And one week in every year the old town filled with strangers to partake of the local triumph. Traps rattled through the usually desolate streets, or street (for like most of its kind it had only one street of any consequence), and merry bushmen, mounted on their merry nags, galloped up and down with a recklessness which was simply charming. All the surrounding youth, beauty, and old age never missed the golden opportunity of attending this local fete, and if they did not make merry, the empty bottles we saw in the yard of the Mount Desolation Hotel must have borne false witness. It is true the thoroughbreds were not always of the highest class, nor the jockeys always sober, but that, instead of detracting from the enjoyment, considerably enhanced it. And didn’t the bookmakers come all the way from Melbourne? and didn’t they smoke big cigars, drink champagne, and flash their diamonds and bank-notes like a set of kino’s? And if the Desolationites failed to pocket any of those greasy notes, was it not entirely their own fault for backing the wrong horse? Ah, they were splendid times, as anyone would tell you, and the doings of one meeting supplied sufficient anecdotes to keep the good people going till the next.

But even when there were no races, the main street of the township presented a very cheerful appearance every Saturday night. Then the miscellaneous members of the community sought the refreshing atmosphere of the numerous bars, and in large quantities of vile beer and viler spirits beguiled the evening hours. On Sunday it was Desolation indeed; but on Monday the week began again, and the good folks laboured long and early, in the broiling sun, in the pitiless rain—for these people know how to work once they begin in earnest. Surely after such a week of terrible toil no one is sour enough to grudge them a little relaxation, even though it take the form of beer and tobacco, and discourse of an unintellectual nature. They are happy enough, heaven knows; and though they live far from the busy haunts of men, though their very existence is unknown to the majority of their countrymen in the south, they yet know themselves to be free-born Australians with a splendid heritage, and that should be enough for any man—especially when he can see horse-racing once a year, and every Saturday night of his life get gloriously drunk.

From this it must not be thought that all the inhabitants of this cheerful spot live but for Saturday night. A thousand times, no! There is a strong religious sentiment running through a large section of the community, which community, being mostly of the Methodist persuasion, has an uproarious way of its own of showing that sentiment. They never attend a racecourse; never patronise the Wombat’s Head or the Bounding Kangaroo. The travelling circus tempts them not; the wandering Christy cracks his bones and rattles his tambourine in vain. They are the elect—they will tell you so a thousand times a day. All others are rushing to perdition. Their self-assurance, their unbounded egotism is a marvel, of which the world has not seen a greater. And there can be no doubt of their sincerity—they talk so much about it. The benighted Catholic may sneer, the ungodly Protestant smile in his atheistical way: but as the Son of Man was reviled, so shall His followers be.

And yet these good folks, if the rumours of the ungodly be worthy of credence, are as full of errors as the rest of poor humanity. They do not attend the races, nor the circus, nor the show of the bone-clapping Christy, but they do many other things of which we dare not speak lest we should be accused of setting down aught in malice. The cloak of charity has been said to cover a multitude of sins; the cloak of sanctity has likewise its advantages, as we have seen in these times, and in times gone by. Even these excellent Methodists, with all their prayers and hymns, have found that out. The contemplation of the spiritual does not always exalt the material, and the elected one is only a poor passionate piece of earth, into which the Superior Force has blown a puff of human fire.

But enough of him. We had forgotten that the sun was sinking all this time, and that we have more important things to chronicle than the idle tittle-tattle of every pitiable clique in a wretched little country township.

Chapter 2

The Curtain Goes Up

Table of Contents

THE sun was setting then, a sullen ball of fire, and its angry beams shot fair into the eyes of two young people who, with slow gait and troubled faces, were slowly wending their way towards the homestead which lay about a mile before them. He was speaking rapidly, with impatient gestures, the red light of the angry sun sparkling fiercely in his eyes. Now and again she would seize his great brown hand in her little gloved one and press it timidly, turning up to his face a pair of the sweetest dark eyes that Mr. Thomas Stanford had ever seen—at least, so that young gentleman thought, for every time she looked up to him he stooped suddenly down and kissed her full on those pouting red lips of hers, or on that smooth white brow over which her hair fluttered in the most wayward manner. She was a tall slender girl, with a rich dark complexion, ruddy and brown like a peach—the sort of complexion only seen with dark women. Her years were but one score, though she looked older, as most Australian girls do, thanks to hot winds and sun. Like the fruit of their native hills, the sun kisses them to perfection with quickness inconceivable. They seem to ripen even as one sits and watches. The child of to-day is the young woman of to-morrow. Ankle skirts and maternity go hand in hand.

Her companion was a tall, dark-complexioned, broadly-built young man of about seven-and-twenty—a typical Australian, active, hardy, sport-loving, blunt, but honest as the day. Features somewhat sharp, and eyebrows slightly compressed, as though their owner had been in the habit of knitting them whenever in thought. This gave a somewhat fierce and eager look to his face, but instead of detracting from it, lent to it a look of command which heightened the general excellence of his well-cut features. White teeth gleamed from beneath a brown moustache, and out from all shone, in strange contrast to the general determination of his carriage, a pair of soft grey eyes. Yet even these, though they had been likened to a woman’s on more than one occasion, had been known to shoot forth lightning sparks which, if they did not burn, at least were known to terrify. But, as a rule, they were soft, and even full of pity, and no one had ever been known to approach Tom Stanford with a tale of true distress without enlisting his sympathy.

What brought him to Mount Desolation no one ever knew or cared. It was known that he had come from somewhere on the Darling, but why, or from which part, was of no consequence. To Mr. Franklin, however, the father of the young girl by his side, he had presented excellent credentials, and was employed as manager of the station, in which capacity he had given entire satisfaction. As we have said, no one had questioned whence he came or what he was, but, for certain reasons which shall be seen hereafter, he volunteered all information respecting his birth and parentage for his employer’s benefit. So from that source we learn that his father was at one time a merchant in Sydney, but that reverses coming upon him, he was forced to the seclusion of a small country house which he had managed to save from the wreck of his fortune. Here Master Thomas, then a boy of twelve, dwelt with his parents for the next five years. Then both mother and father followed each other to the grave, after an interval of five months, and Tom, now a big strapping fellow of seventeen, was sent back to Sydney and put in his uncle’s office. Office work, however, suited not his active nature, and after eighteen months of it he prevailed upon his uncle to let him go into the country to learn the pastoralist’s trade, his ultimate object being to take up some land on his own account. So into the country he went with a friend of the family, a man who owned a big run away up near the Queensland border, and after a two years’ sojourn in those parts he packed up his swag and came farther south. From that time he roamed hither and thither at his own sweet will, for Master Thomas had something of the nomad in him, till he was brought up with a round turn, as a sailor would say, at Mr. Franklin’s station of Koorabyn. Here he proved himself both clever and assiduous, and if he was a little reckless at times Mr. Franklin purposely shut his eyes. There was reckoned no better rider than he on the Darling, and sure no bolder one was ever seen. Buckjumper or bullock, it was all one to him; and a story was told of his having ridden a wild bull for a wager, and won it too. Therefore, when he first came to Mount Desolation he fairly astonished the natives—a race of reckless riders. Horses that no one else could sit he sat and tamed, and when he rode at the races his mount always carried the most money. It was here his reputation for daring increased, and when they saw him ride into the town of a Saturday afternoon, with big Joe Devine, his constant companion, by his side, the people knew there was going to be some fun down at the Bounding Kangaroo, for to that alcoholic retreat the bloods of Desolation adjourned for fun and frolic. Some of the virtuous ones to whom we have referred, to whom cakes and ale were an abomination, had approached Mr. Franklin on Stanford’s behalf, but as Mr. Franklin had found no fault with that young gentleman, but had proved him to be a most excellent overseer, their visits produced no effect. Besides, no matter what he might do at the Bounding Kangaroo, he was never absent from his duties, and that, in his employer’s eyes, was a virtue which outweighed his petty vices.

But of a sudden this dissipation ceased. One Tuesday afternoon he drove the trap over to the railway station to meet Miss Alice Franklin, who was coming back from Melbourne after an absence of several years. Mr. Franklin had often spoken to the young manager of his beautiful daughter, and had naturally excited that young man’s imagination. At last the news came that she was really coming, and as Mr. Franklin happened to be rather unwell on the day of her arrival, he deputed Stanford to go and fetch her in his stead. Tom was on the platform when the train steamed in; he saw a pretty, fashionably-attired young lady step from a first-class carriage, and as she was the only woman who had alighted, he knew it must be she for whom he had been sent. For the first time in his life Mr. Stanford grew exceedingly nervous. He stood staring at her like a big fool, and it was not till she approached and asked him if he had come from Mr. Franklin that he could find his tongue. But the drive back was pleasant enough for all that. He had seen little of ladies for many years now, and this young girl came like a revelation to him. Was there ever such a sweet voice? he wondered, and he sat listening to her musical prattle like one in a dream. And how she did talk, in her soft cultured way!

What a string of questions she asked, never waiting for a reply! Oh, yes—thus went her prattle—she had been to school at Melbourne, but not for the last two years. During that period she had been out. She had not been to Koorabyn for ever so long—not since she was fifteen. She was twenty now. Fancy!—wasn’t she getting old? Was Jura, the kangaroo dog, still alive? My word, how he could jump! And didn’t he have a horrible scar right down his face which a nasty old man kangaroo had once done in a fight? Dead, was he?—poor old Jura! We called him Jura, you know, because he was so big, and there is a big mountain somewhere in Europe called by that name. Papa has seen it. Of course papa is English, and he knows all about those strange European places. And how was papa? And were the quinces she had planted five years ago still growing? She was awfully fond of quinces. Injurious! Oh dear, were they? She had often made her luncheon off a quince and a slice of bread-and-butter. And a nice luncheon it was, too! He ought to try it. He smiled and said he would if she would give him a quince from one of her trees. She looked at him and her chatter ceased of a sudden. There was something so earnest in the grey eyes that looked down into hers that she at once relapsed into the young lady. A rather irksome silence followed, broken but little till the roof of Koorabyn loomed in sight. All the same, Mr. Thomas