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Frank Melton's Luck, Or, Off to New Zealand

Chapter XXXVI. From Grave to Gay—A New Billet

Chapter XXXVI. From Grave to Gay—A New Billet.

Harry had little to say until he and his companion were quite out of sight and hearing of the others. He appeared to be absorbed in thought. Miss Grave bantered him on his unusual silence, then seeing that had no effect, she gently inquired if she had offended him? Here was the opportunity, and now that it had arrived, he felt far more dubious about the result than when confidently proclaiming to me a few days previous the almost certain hopes which he entertained.

‘Offend me, darling! No, nothing that you would do or say could have that effect on me.’ And now words came fast, though faltering in tone, and such words, fair reader, as I hope you may soon hear from one worthy of you, if you have not already heard them—words of true, honest love, words not from the tongue alone, but from the depths of the soul itself, promising what the speaker will assuredly and faithfully perform if he be but allowed the chance, if she will become his and his only.

And could she do this? Yes, she could, and with the maidenly reserve, lovely blushes, and whispering tones, which I am told are usual in such cases, she told him so. He clasped her in his arms, and pressing his lips to hers enjoyed to the full that first sweet kiss of love, and several others. They were in paradise; their feet had left the sordid earth. It was, without doubt, the supremest moment they had either of them yet known. Hitherto their lives had not been very smooth. His peculiar temperament had prevented him from making many friends, or securing much sympathy, and her position in a family like the Robinson's, who, from their lower level, could not understand her, and were constantly paining her finer sensibilities, had been extremely irksome. She would have left them but for an exaggerated notion of Mr Robinson's kindness in taking pity on her, page 154 a lonely orphan, who knew not which way to turn for a home. Although Mrs Robinson treated her most unkindly, yet, considering the great assistance she was in household matters, that careful old lady would have been very sorry to part with her. Taking these circumstances into consideration, we can easily imagine that they felt most exquisitely the knowledge that for the future their lot would be a very different one, and determined to vie with one another which should render to the other the greatest amount of happiness. When they joined the rest of us tea was nearly over, and it was not difficult to guess what had happened. Aunt at once attacked Harry. Miss Grave, making some excuse, left the room with Fanny.

‘We missed you, Harry. Your grave companion must have become quite gay to make you of all men miss your tea.’

‘If she was grave by nature, she has certainly changed, my dear madam, and I think I have the best reasons for saying that she has made up her mind to be Grave by name no longer than it will take to make the necessary arrangements for the proper casting off of that sombre cognomen. She could not withstand my pitiful appeal. It was somewhat in this wise, “Be my companion, my love, instead of Miss Julia's. I require one far more than she does. She has a mother, while I am a poor orphan.” This fetched her.’

This levity served to hide Master Harry's real feelings, and caused a laugh.

‘Poor little orphan,’ replied aunt; ‘sad case. I am delighted to hear it will have someone to take care of it, and see that it gets its meals regular, instead of playing about in the garden and forgetting them. Give the poor little manny some cake, Frank. He must be hungry. Don't spill the crumbs on your pinney, dear.’

We all crowded round him and wished him joy, though it seemed a superfluous wish, for he appeared to be as full of the commodity already as he could hold, regularly steeped in it, in fact.

We will pass over the little conversation which passed between Miss Grave and Fanny in her room. The usual amount of happy tears, without which ladies appear rarely able to express their deeper emotions, had, doubtless, been shed, and the regular quantity of purposeless and unsatisfying caresses given and taken.

The Robinsons had returned to their home directly after tea, and consequently before the happy pair left their leafy paradise. Miss Julia had complained of a severe headache. Heartache would have probably been nearer the mark, but ladies must be excused, as their slight knowledge of anatomy cannot be expected to enable them to locate the pain.

I need hardly say that I enjoyed this evening particularly. Although I felt it would not be kind to force my attentions too suddenly on my cousin, yet we had a very pleasant little chat after our friends had left. Her manner was all I could yet desire. She felt evidently that she ought to make amends for her former treatment of me, neglecting my warnings and accusing me of false representations. She could now see, she owned, that my motive had been her happiness, although I do not pretend I was blind to the fact that I hoped it would combine mine also. She asked my forgiveness for her injustice and cruel suspicions. This I freely gave, and the loving cousinly salute with which we sealed the bond of peace was the most exquisite sensation of the sort I had yet experienced; doubtless from the fact that I could certainly discern an element of something far page 155 sweeter and dearer in it. Her downcast, blushing face as she acknowledged her unkindness, then the quick upturning of the dark fringes of her beauteous eyes, the warm, red lips seeking mine amid my now luxuriant moustache, gave me a sensation which I cannot describe, and made me feel in that brief moment amply repaid for my long period of suspense. My keen susceptibilities to pain or pleasure were undoubtedly desirable qualities, for, irksome as they must ever be in the former case, they enabled me to feel the latter with tenfold more intensity than individuals of a more phlegmatic mould.

This little scene was enacted in an arbour covered with the trailing branches of the passion fruit plant, and did not keep us long enough away from our friends to expose us to the chaffing that greeted Master Harry, and as I had no real authority for hoping for such a speedy termination, if, indeed, such a happy one as he had already gained, it was perhaps as well.

While we had been thus engaged Uncle, Stubbs, and Mr Robinson, who had not returned with his ladies, held a long conversation over the re-captured prisoner. Mr Robinson informed them that his wife had never told him of Grosvenor's engagement to his daughter; that knowing he was very unfavourably impressed with him, she dreaded he would refuse to sanction it; and as she had set her heart on her daughter's making an aristocratic match, she had determined to try and arrange the wedding on one of his frequent absences from home, after which she felt that she could easily manage to make peace.

‘Then you were not greatly impressed with this Fitzwilliams, sir?’ asked Stubbs.

‘Fitzwilliams! was that one of his names?’

‘Yes, that was the name under which he was arrested and imprisoned.’

‘Now I believe I can tell you as much as you care to know about him. I had not the slightest idea till this moment that it was the history of an old acquaintance that I heard a stranger in an hotel at Dunedin relate to another fellow. He was talking of the escape, which was in the morning paper, of a prisoner of that name, and I took an interest in what they were saying. One of them had known him at home. His father was a very shady sort of low attorney; the son also had a natural taste for swindling. When he was at school he got the prefix of ‘Fitz’ stuck on to the more plebeian one of ‘Williams’ on account of the airs he always gave himself. On leaving school he entered his father's office for a few years, and made the most of the lessons learned there. By means best known to himself he managed to swindle the old gentleman out of sufficient funds to carry him to New Zealand and start him as a baronet's son travelling for pleasuse, for he was a 'cute fellow in his way. By various clever little feats of penmanship on blank cheques, imitating the handwriting of his acquaintances, and various other peculiar transactions, he had managed to keep himself going until the Dunedin police dropped on him. He evidently meant to have one or both of our daughters, Melton, curse him! And to give the devil his due, he played his cards boldly, for had not our reverend friend here “held the joker,” he would have had a hand too good for us, and we could not have escaped being euchred.’

‘Excuse me, sir,’ interposed Stubbs, mildly, ‘but I do not quite comprehend your statement about my holding the joker. It was Mr Frank who held him. I must not have the credit of doing what was not within my province, even had I been capable.’

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‘Ha, Ha! Of course, you cannot be expected to understand, Mr Stubbs. I was merely making use of some terms in our favourite game of cards, which appeared applicable. It's a sorry joker the wretch would make, as he has found to his cost.’

‘Yes,’ said uncle, ‘he was certainly up to a dodge or two. I'm mad when I think he got over me. ‘Cute idea, to say he'd gone home, when he was in gaol. It's the only home he'a likely to have, though. I did make inquiries about the passengers by the ship he pretended he sailed in. There were several white-headed ones like him, so I thought it was right. See so few of such varmint out here. A man gets too unsuspecting.’

After this we saw very little of either Mrs Robinson or Julia. The old gentleman, however, often dropped in to join uncle and Mr Bowden in a game of euchre, or to have a yarn about matters pastoral. Mrs Robinson wrote a very sharp note to Miss Grave, ecusing her of heartless ingratitude and shameless behaviour, and desiring her never to show her face in their house again. This tirade of abuse did not cause much dismay in the young lady's breast, for aunt at ones, begged her to remain with us until Harry had completed the purchase of a block of land in our neighbourhood and built a house on it, of which it was generally understood she was to be mistress. She gratefully accepted aunt's invitation, and we were altogether a very jolly party.

Stubbs and his good lady had returned to Auckland. The kick not turn out serious, and soon succumbed to the careful nursing he received. Harry, of course, was to reside with us until his new home was habitable. His land was principally high fern with a little bush. This class of rich fern land about our locality was very easily transferred into fine grass paddocks without the expense and labour of ploughing. The natural growth was burnt off, grass and clover seed sown on the ashes, the land well fenced, and stocked heavily in the spring, when the cattle greedily eat the young tender fern shoots, and by degrees destroy it utterly. It this precaution of heavy stocking when the fern is young is not adopted, it gets the better hand of the grass and chokes it out, and your paddock again becomes a waste.

Just as I was thoroughly enjoying my daily companionship with Fanny under the altered circumstances, uncle called me into his study one day.

‘I've bought that big block of land ten miles north of here. Shall want you to go up and manage it. Take up Tom Hardy with you. He'll look after the cattle and cook. Then those two contractor fellows will soon run you up a slab hut. A tent will do till it's ready. They can go on with the stock-yard and horse paddock after. I'll go up with you to-morrow. Get your traps together, ready to start. I'll give you two pound a week and found. You can put on some stock of your own into the bargain. You've got some coin saved, I know.’

This programme I could not hail with unmixed delight. After residing in our lively home circle I should find bachelor quarters unquestionably dull, and the loss of Fanny's society would be a very severe one. Yet I should be very much more my own master, and instead of being virtually a stockman at the regular wages of one pound per week, I should be an overseer drawing double that remuneration, with the extra privilege of running a mob of my own page 157 cattle with my uncle's. I did not inform him that I should be unable to take advantage of this part of the offer at present, for knowing his, great aversion to mining speculation, I had judged it wisest not to let him know of my folly in not regarding his advice. Indeed, I now bitterly regretted that I had not the money in my pocket instead of what appeared to me as so much waste paper. I could then have purchased a small mob of cattle. I seriously thought of selling out once, but when I found that at the current market price I should not get half my purchase money back, I thought I would let things remain as they were for a time. I busied myself that afternoon with looking up our outfit, putting a few fresh straps on the pack saddle, mending a hole or two in the tent, and getting things ready for the morrow's journey. Tom Hardy, who was to be my fac totum, was a good sample of the regular old hand. Nothing ever seemed to come amiss to him. He could drive a team of bullocks, break in a young horse, do rough carpentering, put in a day at the garden, slaughter a beast, cut your hair, or serve up as good a dinner as you need wish to sit down at, with the same imperturbable coolness and good humour. He had at various times served in a great variety of capacities. When wanting a job he never refused a good offer whether he knew anything of the duties or not, trusting to good luck and a general aptitude for adapting himself to his work, whatever it might turn out to be, to pull him through, which it almost invariably did. I never yet remember hearing him acknowledge that anything was beyond him. He was that rara avis, a jack-of-all trades, and master of most of them. It will be easily understood that he was exactly the man for me.