Hobart, where it was decided to spend the honeymoon, from their joint experience of its unequalled summer climate, and picturesque beauty, was reached on the following day. A charming villa “by the sad sea waves” had been secured for them, by a friend, the all-potential personage who “ran,” so to speak, the social, sporting, and residential affairs of the city, and whose dictum, at once suave and authoritative, no Tasmanian, whether foreign visitor or native born, was found bold enough to withstand. The bridegroom remembered driving there in a tandem cart, drawn by a refractory pair, which he had reduced to subjection, doing the twelve miles out, at a creditable pace, though not quite in time for dinner. But the view, the isolation and the forest paths of this ideal private paradise had imprinted themselves indelibly on his memory.

As it happened, the person in charge of the cottage was absent, but refreshment was sent in by the housekeeper, which they were in a mood thoroughly to enjoy, looking forward to the many divine repasts which they would share in this enchanting retreat.

From the open window of the morning room, looking eastward, they gazed over the south arm of the Derwent; a broad estuary having the cloud effects and much of the spacious grandeur of the ocean. The headland, on which the bungalow stood, commanded a wide and varied view, in which sea and crag, land and water were romantically mingled. Scrambling down the cliff by a precipitous path to the beach, they found to their great delight that a raspberry plantation had been formed on the cliff-sheltered slope, much of which was in full bearing. The modified English climate of Tasmania is eminently favourable to the production of the smaller fruits, such as the currant, strawberry, gooseberry, raspberry and blackberry—this last growing in wild profusion in hedges and over fences.

“Oh! how delightful,” cried Imogen, as, seated on a large stone she applied herself to the consumption of an enticing raspberry feast spread upon a leaf platter, woven deftly by the hands of her husband. “Look at the calm water—the fishing boats, the gulls, the small waves breaking on the beach! Was there ever such an ideal honeymoon lodge? And these lovely raspberries. We can get cream at the house. And what a leaf platter! Where did you learn to make one, sir? you must have had practice.”

“At Nuku-heva! I was stranded there for six months once. The girls taught me.”

“Girls, indeed! That sounds very general and comprehensive. No savage maiden in particular. Quite sure, now? No photograph?”

“If there was, I’ve forgotten all about her. I don’t keep photographs. There’s only one damsel that is imperishably engraved upon heart and soul—memory, aye, this mortal frame—by a totally new process. It has the effect of destroying all former negatives—the best specimens of photography are put to shame, and obliterated.

“And that is called—?”

“The last love of the mature man—the answering fondness of the woman—the best love—the true love—the only love which survives the burden of care, the agony of grief, the chances and changes of life. The steady flame which burns even brighter in the dark depths of despair.”

“Oh! I daresay—fascinating creatures, I suppose—were they not?”

“I have forgotten all about them. There is one fascination for me, henceforth, and one only. It will last me until my life ends or hers. I pray that mine may be the first summons.”

“Men were deceivers, ever,” hummed Imogen. “But I must make the best of it, now I have got you. The Fates were against us at first, were they not? What a strange thing is a girl’s heart! How short a time it takes to cast itself at a man’s feet. How long—long—endless, wretched, unendurable are the days of doubt, grief, anguish unutterable, if he prove faithless, or the girl has over-rated his attachment. It nearly killed me, when I thought you had gone away without caring.”

“And suppose I had never returned? I began to believe you had decided not to answer my letters. That Edward had not relented. That you did not care—transient interest, and so on. It is so with many women.”

“Transient interest!” cried Imogen, jumping up and scattering the raspberries in her excitement. “Why, there was not one single hour from the time you left Marondah till I saw you again, that my heart was not full of thoughts of you. Why should I not think of you? You told me you loved me—though it was so short a time since we had met, and my every sense cried out that your love was returned—redoubled in fervour and volume.”

“How little we know of women and their deeper feelings,” mused Blount. “How often you hear of a pair of lovers, that he or she has ‘changed their mind.’ The ordinary platitudes are rehearsed to friends and acquaintances. When they separate—perhaps for ever—the outside world murmurs cynically, ‘better before marriage than after,’ and the incident is closed.”

“Closed, yes,” answered Imogen, “because one heart is bleeding to death.”

While rambling through the old house, which was handsomely furnished, though not in modern fashion, they came upon a morning room, which had evidently been regarded as a fitting apartment for treasures of art and literature, etchings, etc.

In it was a bookcase, containing old and choice editions. The dates, those of the last century, told a tale of the family fortunes, presumably at a higher level of position than in these later days. A “dower chest” of oak was rubbed over, and the inscription deciphered; a few rare etchings were noted and appreciated. Through these the lovers went carefully hand in hand, Blount, who was a connoisseur of experience, pointing out to Imogen any special value, or acknowledged excellence; when, suddenly letting go her hand, he rushed over to a dim corner of the room, where he stopped in front of an oil painting, evidently of greater age and value than the other pictures.

“Yes,” he said, first carefully removing the dust from the left hand corner of the canvas, under which, though faint and indistinct, the name of a once famous artist, with a date, could be distinguished.

“I thought so, it is a Romney. He was famed for his portraits. But what a marvellous coincidence! Perfectly miraculous! I was told that in Tasmania I should fall across curious survivals, as at one time the emigration of retired military and naval officers was officially stimulated by the English Government. The promise of cheap land and labour (that of assigned servants, as they were called) in a British colony with a mild climate and fertile soil, attracted to a quasi-idyllic life those heads of families, whose moderate fortunes forbade enterprise in Britain. Special districts, such as Westbury and New Norfolk, were indicated as peculiarly adapted for fruit and dairy farms.”

“I remember quite well,” said Imogen, “when I was here at school in Hobart, that many of the girls belonged to families such as you mention. Such nice people, with grand old names, but so very, very poor. The parents were not the sort to get on in a new country, though the sons, as they grew up, mostly altered that state of affairs. But they did not remain in Tasmania. No! they went to Queensland, New Zealand, or Victoria till they made money. Then they generally returned to marry an old sweetheart and settle down for life near Launceston or Hobart. They were very patriotic, and awfully fond of their dear little island. But what is all this coincidence? You seem quite excited about it.”

“Will you have the goodness to look at this picture, Mrs. Blount?”

“I am looking,” said she. “It must be a very life-like portrait of somebody. And how beautifully painted! Quite a gem, evidently. The more you look at it the more life-like it appears. What lovely blue eyes! A girl in the glory of her youthful graces; I mustn’t add airs, I suppose, for fear of being thought cynical. But the expression must have been caught with amazing fidelity. Stamped, as it were, for ever. I suppose it is very valuable?”

“If it is the portrait which I have reason to believe it is its value is great. The original was found in an old manor house belonging to the De Cliffords. The house—once a king’s—though not untenanted, was let to people unacquainted with art, and had been so neglected as to be almost in ruins. The owner of the estate, an eccentric recluse, was a very old man. He refused to have any of the furniture removed, or the paintings taken down from the walls. At his death, people were permitted to view the place, which was afterwards sold. The heir-at-law turned everything he could into money, and emigrated to Tasmania.”

“Quite the proper thing to do. We did something of the same sort, whereof the aforesaid Imogen (I was so described in my settlement) met with one Blount, and marrying him, became the happiest girl in Australia or out of it. Didn’t she?”

Blount responded appropriately; it would seem convincingly, for the dialogue was resumed as they again went out. She desired to know why, and wherefore, this particular portrait was so very precious. Other young women, doubtless, in that long dead time, had had their portraits painted.

“Because this is the very picture, I am almost certain, which inspired Robert Montgomery with those lovely lines of his: ‘To the Portrait of an Unknown Lady.’ Have you never read them?”

“No! I have heard some one speak of them, though.”

“Well, the picture disappeared before the sale. The family would never explain. There was evidently some mystery, painful or otherwise, connected with it. Montgomery’s lines had made it famous. And it was a disappointment to intending buyers, many of whom came long distances to bid for it.”

“Rather a long story, but wildly interesting. To think that we should have come across it on our wedding trip, and here of all places. Well, as a punishment for your taking so much interest in an unknown lady you shall repeat the lines. I daresay you know them by heart.”

“I think I do. At any rate I know the leading ones. If there are more we can read them together afterwards.

Here the girl’s head sank on her lover’s shoulder, and as her slender form reclined with the unconscious abandon of a child against his breast, while his arm wound closely and yet more closely around her yielding waist, “Oh! go on, go on, my darling! let me hear it all,” she murmured:

“There are more verses; I will show you the poem so that you may enjoy the spirit of it. It was a favourite of mine, since boyhood. And now I see the crests of the waves towards the southern skyline, rearing higher. The sea breeze is often chill. Suppose we scramble up the path and go inside?”

“What a lovely view! and what delicious verses,” cried the girl. “Shall we always be as happy as we are now? I feel as if I did not deserve it.”

“And I am lost in wonder and admiration at the supernatural state of bliss in which I find myself,” answered Blount. “I ought to throw something of value into the deep, to avert the anger of Nemesis. Here goes,” and before Imogen could prevent him, he had unfastened a bangle which he wore on his wrist, and hurled it far into the advancing tide. “Let us hope that no fish will swallow it, and return it, through the agency of the cookmaid.”

“Now, I call that wasteful and superstitious,” quoth Imogen, pretending to be angry. “You will need all the silver in the South Pacific Comstock, if you throw about jewellery in that reckless fashion. And who gave you that bangle, may I ask? You never showed it to me.”

“I won it in a bet, long ago. The agreement was that whoever won was to wear the bangle till he or she was married. After that, they might dispose of it as they thought fit. I forgot all about it till to-day. So this seemed an auspicious hour, and I sacrificed it to the malign deities.”

“And this is man’s fidelity!” quoted Imogen. “For of course, it was a woman. Confess! Didn’t your heart give a little throb, as you pitched away the poor thing’s gift?”

“Hm! the poor thing, as you call her, is happily married ‘to a first-class Earl, that keeps his carriage.’ I daresay she’s forgotten my name, as I nearly did that of the possessor of the bangle.”

The allotted term of happiness passed at the Hermitage, for such had been the name given to it by the original owner, who lived there for the last remaining years of a long life, too quickly came to an end. For happiness, it surely was, of the too rare, exquisitely attempered quality, undisturbed by regrets for the past, or forebodings for the future. Such wounds and bruises of the heart, as he had encountered, though painful, even in a sense agonising, at the time, were of a nature to be cured by the subtle medicaments of the old established family physician, Time. They were not “his fault,” so to speak. Such sorrows and smarts are not of the nature of incurable complaints. The agony abates. The healthful appetite in youth for variety, for change of scene, the solace of bodily exercise, and the competition with new intelligences, extinguish morbid imaginings: thus leaving free the immortal Genius of Youth to range amid the unexplored kingdoms of Romance, where in defiance of giants and goblins, he is yet fated to discover and carry off the fairy princess.

“And I did discover her, darling, didn’t I?” said he, fondly pressing her hand which lay so lovingly surrendered to his own, as after a long stroll through the fern-shadowed glades of the still untouched primeval forest, they came in sight of the Hermitage, and halted to watch the breakers rolling on the beach below the verandah, where during their first delirium they had so often watched the moon rise over a summer sea.

“All very well, sir,” replied Imogen, with the bright smile which irradiated her countenance like that of a joyous child, “but the ‘carrying off’ ‘hung fire’ (to return to the prose of daily life), until the princess became apprehensive, lest she might not be carried off at all, and was minded to set out to reverse the process, and carry off the knight. How would that have sounded? What a deathblow to all the legends of chivalry! The page’s dress would be rather a difficulty, wouldn’t it? Fancy me appearing amongst all those nice girls and men at Hollywood Hall! Inquiring, too, for ‘a gentleman of the name of Blount!’ I hardly did know your name then, which would have been a drawback. I am tall enough for a page, though, and could have arranged the ‘clustering ringlets, rich and rare,’ like poor Constance de Beverley. How I wept for her, when I was a school-girl, little thinking that I should have to weep bitter tears for myself in days to come.”

“And did she weep, my heart’s treasure, in her true knight’s absence?”

“Weep?” cried she, while—in the midst of her mockery and simulated grief, the true tears filled her eyes at the remembrance, “‘wept enough to extinguish a beacon light’—I took to reading dear Sir Walter Scott again in sheer desperation. Ivanhoe and Rob Roy saved my life, I really believe, when I was recovering from that—hm—‘influenza.’ Oh, how wretched I was! As the Sturt, that dear old river, flowed before my window, more than once I thought what a release it would be from all but unendurable pangs. I don’t wonder that women drown or hang themselves in such a case. I knew of one—yes—two instances—poor things!”

“Any men?”

“Yes; two also. So the numbers are even. We don’t seem to be growing cheerful, though, do we? I feel just a little tired; afternoon tea must be nearly ready. There’s nothing left for us now (as Stevenson says), ‘not even suicide, only to be good,’ a fine resolve to finish up with.”

“Let us seal the contract, those who are in favour, etc. Carried unanimously!”

The day’s post brought a letter from Mr. Tregonwell, which, like a stone thrown into a pond, disturbed the smoothness of their idyllic life. An incursion of the emissaries of Fate was imminent.

“Mr. Blount’s presence was absolutely, urgently necessary at the mine. There was industrial trouble brewing. The ‘wages men’—as those labourers at a mine are called, who are not shareholders—had increased necessarily to a large number; they wanted higher pay, the weather being bad and the discomforts considerable. The British shareholders were in a majority on the London Board and were beginning to make their power felt. No serious dispute, but better to arrange in time. Would have come himself to Hobart, but thought it imprudent at present to leave the mine. Very rich ore body just opened out. Prospects absolutely wonderful. Sorry to bother him, but business urgent.”

“What a terrible man!” moaned Imogen. “Wherever we are he will always be coming suddenly down upon us and destroying our peace of mind. I suppose, however, that he is a necessary evil.”

“He is a first-rate worker and very prudent withal, but to show the element of luck in these matters it is to my decision, not his, that we retained the share which is now likely to become a fortune.”

“Oh! but there must be some special quality among your bundle of qualities which you are so fond of decrying,” said Imogen, with wifely partiality; “some quick insight into the real value of things, which is in so many cases superior to mere industry and perseverance.”

“There must be,” said Blount thoughtfully, accepting the compliment, “or how should I have secured one priceless treasure to which all the mines of Golconda are but as pebbles and withered leaves.”

“What treasure? Oh, flatterer!” said the girl; “how you have capped my poor but honest belief in you. Well, time alone must tell how this particularly clever human investment is going to turn out. It won’t do for this lady to ‘protest too much.’ Now where shall I stay until my knight returns from the war?”

“In Hobart, I should say, most decidedly. It is a cheerful city at this season of year. The coolness of the summer, the charm of the scenery, the cheerfulness of the society—this being the play-place of six other colonies. Any chance of Mrs. Bruce coming over? Suggest the idea.”

“Perhaps she might.”

“Tell her I have taken a cottage between Sandy Bay and Brown’s River for her specially; one of the loveliest suburbs. If she’ll come over and take care of you, I shall be eternally indebted to her for the second time. You remember the first? How good she was. But for her —, etc.”

“She must come as our guest, and bring Black Paddy and Polly, and the babies, for offside groom and nurserymaid—(that’s good Australian, isn’t it? nearly equal to ‘Banjo’ Paterson).”

“Stuff and nonsense! Australians talk the purest English; rather better, in fact, than the home-grown article. But oh! how I should love to have her here and the dear chicks. Edward could come for her afterwards.”

So that was settled. Mrs. Bruce, replying, wrote that Edward had given her leave to come for a couple of months. It was really getting very hot and baby was pale. He, Edward, not the baby, was going to Sydney on business; thought of selling out of Queensland, so would cross over and spend the end of the visit with them.

These arrangements were carried out. Mrs. Bruce, with her servants and children, were safely bestowed at the pretty villa at Sandy Bay, where Black Paddy, as groom and coachman, and Polly, as under-nursemaid, excited as much attention as Mrs. Huntingdon’s ayah from Madras. Mr. Blount was free to depart for the South Pacific Comstock (Proprietary), which included a decided change from these Arcadian habitudes. Arrived at Strahan, he perceived various improvements, which he correctly attributed to Tregonwell’s boundless energy and aroused imagination.

Long stretches of corduroy, regularly repaired, rendered the transit business comparatively free from difficulty. Great gangs of men were employed in clearing the track for the projected railway. The work of piercing the forest was tremendous. The great size of the trees (a scientist had measured one eighty feet in circumference), the density and confused nature of the jungle, through which the way had almost to be tunnelled, if such an expression can be applied to operations above ground, retarded progress. The masses of fallen timber at the sides of the track, the whole laborious task carried on under ceaseless rain, was sufficient to over-task the energies of all but the stubborn, resistless Anglo-Saxon.

But on the mining fields of Australasia, if but the precious metal, gold, silver, or copper, be visible, or even believed to be within reach in sufficient quantities, no toil, no hardship is sufficient to daunt the resolute miner; neither heat, nor cold, the burning dust storms of Broken Hill, the icy blasts that sweep from the solitudes of Cape Nome over the frozen soil of Klondyke, have power to stay the conquering march of the men, ay, of the women of our race, or slake the thirst for adventure which is as the breath of their nostrils.

So, by the time Mr. Blount arrived on the scene, after a single day’s journey from the coast, the melodramatic action of a progressive mining town was “in full blast.”

The hotels and stores were comparatively palatial. Tall weatherboard buildings with balconies, enabled the inmates to gaze over the waving ocean of tree-tops and to mark where the jungle had been invaded by the pioneer’s axe, that primary weapon of civilisation. The streets, miry and deep-rutted, had yet side walks with wooden curbs, which provisionally, at any rate, preserved the foot passengers from the slough into which the ceaseless trampling of bullocks, horses and mules had worn the track. As in all such places in their earlier stages, money was plentiful. Wages were high, labour was scarce. The adventurers who came to inspect the “field” necessarily brought capital with them. Under the Mining Act and Regulations of the colony, allotments had been marked out in the principal streets to be acquired by purchase or lease. Legal occupation had succeeded the early scramble for possession. A Progress Committee had been formed, precursor of municipal action, of which Mr. Tregonwell, of course, was the elected President. Its members advised the Government of the day of urgently necessary reforms, or demanded such, with no lack of democratic earnestness. Behind all this life and movement there was the encouraging certainty of the still-increasing richness of the principal mine, the original shares in which rose to a height almost unprecedented.

Among other necessities of civilisation, a newspaper had, of course, been established. The Comstock Clarion subserved its purpose by clean type, smart local intelligence, and accurate reviews of all mining enterprises from Australia to the ends of the earth. Having been waited upon by the editor without loss of time, Mr. Blount found himself thus presented to an intelligent and enterprising public:—

“Yesterday morning we had the honour of welcoming to our thriving township a gentleman, to whose courage and enterprise the public of Comstock are indebted for the inception of a great national industry, the founding of a city fated to rival, if not surpass, in wealth and population both Hobart and Launceston. Mr. Blount courteously supplied, in answer to our request, the following interesting notes of his original connection with the great mine in which he owns a controlling interest.

“Visiting Tasmania en route for England a few years since, he was offered shares in a newly-prospected silver mine. Mr. Tregonwell was then associated with him in mining ventures. The partners were offered a half share in the claim newly taken up of four men’s ground, Messrs. Herbert and Clarke owning the remainder. Mr. Tregonwell, though experienced and sanguine—of which qualities we have ample proof before our eyes—advised the rejection of the ‘show.’ Mr. Blount, for a reason not stated, was firm in retaining it. He was in a position to find the cash for payment of lease application, rents, and working expenses until the discovery of the richest silver lode south of the line was an accomplished fact. ‘Si monumentum queris, circumspice.’”

The Latin quotation was inappropriate, inasmuch as it was not proposed to erect any kind of memorial structure in honour of Mr. Blount, but it looked well, and few of the readers of the Clarion were critical. However, the article had the effect of directing all eyes to the visitor, unobtrusively dressed as he was, whenever he appeared. He was, of course, fÊted and invited to banquets given by leading citizens or mining celebrities. The financial condition of the mine was eminently satisfactory, even brilliant. It held a high place among British investors and foreign syndicates. Members even of the British Parliament did not disdain to take passages in the “P. and O.” or “Messageries’” boats for the special purpose of inspecting the wonderful mine. They returned laden with lumps of ore, being fragments of a silver mountain which they had seen with their eyes and driven a pick into when personally conducted by the American “mining Captain,” who received £5,000 a year salary, and was promised another £1,000 should things continue to go well.

As the season had advanced the weather even in that austere and dreadful wilderness relaxed its icy grip. The forest trees, the giant eucalypts and towering pines, “had a tinge of softer green.” The moss looked bright “touched by the footsteps of spring,” haunting even that unlovely wild. Mr. Blount, though loyally impatient to return to his Imogen and the calm delights of Hobart, felt distinctly in better spirits. He even took a mild gratification in marking the heterogeneous element of the stranger hordes that arrived daily, gathered as they were from the ends of the earth, of all nations apparently, and several colours. “Gentle and simple,” forlorn workers and wayfarers from many a distant land, mingled with derelicts of the classes akin to “Mr. and Mrs. Winchester.” The men feverishly anxious to strike some lucky find or chance investment, the women poorly dressed, working at the humblest household tasks, all wearing the vague, yearning, half-despairing expression, which comes of the heart-sickness of “hope deferred.” Theirs was the harder lot. Still, with but few exceptions, they faced the rude living and unaccustomed toil with the courage women invariably show when hard fortune makes a call on their nobler attributes.

Nowhere is the ascent of the “up grade” of mining prosperity, when the tide of fortune is flowing, and the financial barometer is “set fair,” made easier than in Australasia. Rude as may be the earlier stages, the change from the mining camp, the collection of rude cabins, to the town, the city even, is magically rapid. To the gold or silver deposit, as the case may be, everything is attracted with resistless force as by the loadstone mountain of Sindbad. Time, distance, the rude approach by land travel, the stormy seas, all are defied. And though delays and dangers are so thickly strewn before the path of the adventurer, he and his like invariably arrive at their goal and would get there somehow, if behind every tree stood an armed robber, and were every trickling creek a turbulent river.

Mr. Tregonwell had proved himself capable of carrying out the rather extensive programme, financial and otherwise, which he had produced for the inspection of his partners on their first meeting at the mine. The manager of world-wide experience and unequalled reputation had been procured from America; had been paid the liberal salary; had proved himself more than worthy of his fame. The railway to Strahan was in process of completion. Contracts, let at many different points, were nearing one another with startling rapidity.

The price of provisions had fallen. Wages were high—yet the contractors were making as much money as the shareholders. With the exception of the very poor and the chronic cases of ill-luck from which no community is, ever has been, or ever will be free, the Great Silver Field was the modern exemplar of a place where every one had all that he wanted now, and was satisfied that such would be the case for the future.

The wages misunderstanding had been settled, an arrangement made with one of the most stable banks in Australia, by which the Directors agreed to cash Mr. Tregonwell’s drafts for all reasonable, and, indeed, unreasonable, amounts, as some over-cautious, narrow-minded people considered. The predominant partner began to revolve the question of an early departure. The juniors, Charlie Herbert and Jack Clarke, had earned golden opinions from Tregonwell as cheerful workers and high-couraged comrades. He willingly agreed to their holidays at Christmas time, now drawing nigh, if one would remain with him for company, and perhaps assistance in time of need, while the other enjoyed himself among his relatives and friends in one of the charming country houses of his native land. As for himself, he did not require change or recreation, his duty was to the shareholders, who had entrusted him with such uncontrolled powers of dictatorship.

Mr. Blount would be within easy reach of telegrams at Hobart, whence he could come up for a week when a difficult point or question of further outlay needed to be settled. Comstock was not such a very uncomfortable place now, and would be less so in the near future, and Frampton Tregonwell had lived and thriven amid worse surroundings.

So, as the short summer of the West Coast crept slowly on towards the “great Festival” which heralds “Peace on Earth, and good will towards men,” all things seemed moving in a tranquil orderly manner towards organised success and permanent prosperity. The big mill with the newest improvements, and a high-grade German scientist from Freiburg in command, had just been completed and was turning out unprecedented returns. Everything went smoothly, socially and otherwise. Although so near to what had once been an accumulation of the most desperate criminals the world could show, only kept under by the merciless uniformity of a severe administration—the present crime record was curiously low, and trifling in extent. Labour was well paid, well fed and lodged. All men had, moreover, the hope of even greater benefits, as results from their toil. Under these circumstances the list of offences is invariably light. The inducements to crime were so small, as almost to lead to an optimistic belief that incursions on the goods and persons of neighbours would at an early date cease and determine. The dream of the philanthropist would at last be fulfilled.

Perhaps, also, that other dream of a socialistic division of labour with equal partition of the fruits of the earth, and the partition of the fruits of labour (chiefly other men’s labour) for the benefit of the poor but honest worker would be an accomplished fact.

So, in the ordering of things mundane, it came to pass that Mr. Blount, to his great contentment and satisfaction, had everything arranged and “fixed up,” as Tregonwell expressed it (culling his phrases from all nations and many tongues), and departing via Strahan, bade farewell for the present to Macquarie Harbour, Hell’s Gates, and the other lonely and more or less historic localities. The passage, for a wonder, was smooth, the wind fair, and it was with joy and satisfaction, which he could hardly forbear expressing in a shout of exultation, that he found himself once more in Hobart, within arm’s length, so to speak, of Imogen and his “kingdom by the sea.”

That young woman had kept herself well informed as to the time when the Strahan steamer might be expected, and appeared at the wharf driving the mail phaeton. Black Paddy was beside her on the box; in front was the bay mare, “Matchless,” with her mate “Graceful,” in top condition, and ready to jump out of their skins, with rest and good keep. This valuable animal, formerly hard worked, with but little rest, and far from luxurious fare, had been contented to rattle up and down the hills between Hobart and Brown’s River and the Huon, without so much as a hint from the whip. Under present circumstances, she naturally took a little holding.

But Imogen and Mrs. Bruce had been accustomed to ride and drive almost as soon as they could walk. With great nerve and full experience, fine hands, an unequalled knowledge of the tempers and dispositions, management and control, of all sorts and conditions of horses, very few secrets of the noble animal, whether in saddle or harness, were hidden from them. So when Imogen drove up to the Tasmanian Club, where her husband had temporarily deposited himself, his specimens and belongings generally, he had no misgivings as to the competency of his charioteer, nor did he offer, as most men would have done, to take the reins himself.

“How well they look,” he remarked, after the first greeting, “‘Matchless’ has fallen on her legs in coming to this establishment. Does she give any trouble in her altered condition?”

“Hardly any, only she doesn’t like waiting, now there is no cab behind her. Burra burrai, Paddy! Mine thinkit mare plenty saucy direckaly.”

That swart retainer understood the position, and helping the club servant with the heaviest trunk on to the back seat, stepped up beside it with noiseless agility, while at the same moment “Matchless” and “Graceful” moved off with regulated speed, which soon landed them at “home”—a word which Mr. Blount pleased himself by repeating more than once.

“Hilda looks just as she did,” said he, “when I first saw her at Marondah. I admired her then. I admire her now—how little I thought that I should see her again, as a sister-in-law! or that a certain ‘vision of delight was to burst upon my sight’ so soon afterwards.”

“I remember how you stared,” said Imogen; “almost rudely, indeed. Didn’t you?”

“First of all, I didn’t know that Mrs. Bruce had a sister in the house. Secondly, when the girl aforesaid appeared, unexpectedly in all her fresh and smiling loveliness—pardon my partiality—I was completely knocked over, so to speak, and couldn’t help a sort of rapt gaze—as at a wood nymph, which you unkindly call staring. I fell in love—at first sight as men say—deep, deeper, miles deep next morning, and so will remain till my life’s end.”

“I am afraid it goes rather like that with me, if I must confess,” admitted Imogen, “though the heroine of a modern novel would never have behaved so badly, now would she?”

“All’s well that ends well,” said the returned voyager. “I’ll hold the horses while you run in, Paddy!”

The luggage having been taken in, Paddy ascended nimbly, and drove soberly round to the stable.

Christmas having actually arrived, it was the commencement of the “season” in Hobart and Tasmania generally. The dear little island, so true an epitome of the ancestral isle in the climatic conditions, in the stubborn independence of the population, in the incurious, unambitious lives of the rural inhabitants, was filled with strangers and pilgrims from every colony in Australasia.

Persons in search of health, haggard men from the Queensland “Never Never” country, the far “Bulloo,” and “The Gulf,” where hostile blacks and fever decimated the pioneers! Outworn prospectors from West Australia—a rainless, red-hot, dust-tormented region, where, incredible as it may appear, the water is charged for separately as well as the whisky.

Commercial, pastoral and legal magnates, whose over-taxed brain craved little save rest and coolness—contented to lie about inhaling the evening breeze—to read, to fish, to muse, to think maybe, of a heaven, where lawyers’ clerks, even with briefs, were not admitted. Sailors too, from the half dozen men of war from the South Pacific fleet, having a run ashore, and playing their part nobly, as is their wont on land, in all picnics, balls and cricket matches, even in drives to the Huon River nearly fifty miles out and back. This was rather an object lesson for British tourists, as to the capabilities of Australian horses, and Australian drivers, inasmuch as the leading drag with four horses, hired from a well-known livery stable proprietor, and driven by a native-born Tasmanian, negotiated the fifty-mile stage, allowing two hours for luncheon and boating on the river, between breakfast time and dusk, the whole being performed not only without distress to the well-bred team, but with “safety to the passenger, and satisfaction to the looker on.” The road was by no means of average description, far from level, indeed, having shuddering deeps, where it wound along hillsides, and sudden turns, and twisted at right angles, when the leaders ran across a dip in the gully, which crossed the road, and the wheelers had their heads turned at right angles to the leaders. Then the down grade towards the sea, on the return trip, when the heavily laden coach rolled, lurching at times near the edge of the precipice, and the “boldest held their breath for a time.” But through every change, and doubtful seeming adventure, in darksome forest, and ferny glade, where the light of heaven was obscured, the watchful eye and sure hand of the charioteer guided team and coach, with practised ease and assured safety.

Then the race meeting, to which you went by land or water, as taste inclined. The deep sea fishing in the harbour, or the streams so clear and cold in summer, where the trout lay under bridge or bank, and when skies were dull, took the fly much as in Britain.

The hunting with country packs, the shooting, the long walks over hill and dale—the halts, when a peep through the forest glades showed a distant view of the foam-crested ocean! What joyous days were those, when with Imogen by his side, who walked as well as she rode and drove, they started with a few picked friends for that exceptional piece of exercise, which includes the ascent of Mount Wellington. It is an Alpine feat, only to be attempted by the young and vigorous, in the springtime of life. “The way is long, the mountain steep,” and if limbs and lungs are not in good order, the pedestrian is sure to tire half way, to collapse ingloriously before the summit is reached. Rough in some places is the track—over the ploughed field’s (so called) painful march. A sprained ankle may easily result, from a slip, or worse even, a dislocated knee, most tedious and troublesome of the minor injuries, and which has lamed for life ere now the too confident pedestrian. Another danger to be feared, is the sudden envelopment by the mountain mist, under the confusing conditions of which more than one person has lost his way and his life, perishing in some unnamed retreat. No such dangers affrighted Imogen and her husband. They reached the summit, and standing there, hand in hand, beheld the unrivalled scene. High over forest and valley they gazed o’er the boundless ocean plain—so still and shining, three thousand feet below them. The forest, with apparently a level surface above its umbrageous eucalypts, looked like a toy shrubbery. The city nestled between the sea wall and the enormous mountain bulk, under whose shadow it lay.

The busy population looked small as the denizens of a populous anthill. “It is a still day, ‘GrÂce À Dieu,’” said Blount; “there’s no tyrannous south wind from the ocean—coming apparently straight from the ice fields of the Pole, to chill us to the bone, and cause the poor forest trees to cry and groan aloud in their anguish. Wind has its good points, probably, but I confess to a prejudice against the Euroclydon variety. Especially when we are doing this Alpine business. By the way, there is Mr. Wendover’s delightful woodland chÂlet—only a mile away. Suppose we make a call there.”

“I scorn to acknowledge myself tired,” said Imogen; “but raspberries and cream—this is the season—would be an appropriate incident on this day of days. They recall the Hermitage, do they not? I can’t say more.”

“And Mrs. Wendover is so charmingly hospitable,” said a girl companion. “She has always the newest books, and music too, which, with the before-mentioned raspberries, takes one far in the pursuit of happiness.”

“While youth, and the good digestion which waits on appetite, last,” said a middle-aged person with a bright eye and generally alert expression. “Youth is the great secret. Heaven forbid that any of this good company should confess to a hint of middle age, but I have a haunting dread lest the world’s best joys should be stealing away from me.”

“Are there not compensations, Captain Warrender?” asked a lady, whose refined, intellectual cast of countenance suggested literature. “Think how delightful to hear of one’s last new book being rushed for new editions, and simply being devoured all over the world.”

“Success is pleasant in whatever state of life it comes to one, but were I allowed to choose between reading and writing, my vote would be distinctly in favour of the former. The delightful self-complacency with his task which the author of a successful book is supposed to feel is over-rated, I assure you. It becomes a task, like all other compulsory labour, and there are so many times and seasons when one would much rather do something else. The chief, almost the only valuable result to the producer (except the money, which, of course, is not despised) is, that the reputation of successful authorship brings with it a host of agreeable acquaintances, and even some true and lifelong friendships.”

“Have you found other authors free from envy, malice, and so forth?” asked Mrs. Allendale.

“I can truly say that I have, with the rarest exceptions. Now and then a man writing on party lines will administer a dose of unkind, perhaps unfair, criticism which he calls ‘slating’ your book. But there is little real ill-nature in the article, however much you may feel annoyed at the time. And the freemasonry which exists among literary people, great and small, makes on the whole for friendly relations. A man says: ‘Oh, you wrote Cocoanuts and Cannibals, didn’t you? Had rather a run when it came out. Queer place to live in, I should think.’ Then you foregather, and become, as it were, the honorary member of a club. Not that one volunteers this information, but it leaks out.”

“Oh, here is the chÂlet gate, and I see Mrs. Wendover’s pet Jersey cow, ‘Lily Langtry,’” said Miss Chetwynde. “How nice she looks among the red and white clover. Puts one in mind of dear old England, doesn’t it?”

“Where you never were,” laughed another maiden of the happy isle.

“I know that, but I’ve read so much about the grand old country that I can fancy everything. Dear Miss Mitford! what a lovely touch she has! I shall go there some day if I live. In the meantime here comes Mrs. Wendover, all smiles, welcome, and a picture hat, dear creature! I wonder what Miss Mitford would have thought of this forest, which comes up so close to the house, if she had seen it. I should be afraid of a fire some day.”

“Oh! our forests don’t burn so badly, even when they are on fire; this place is safe enough. Sunburn is our worst danger just now, and there’s the naval ball this evening. My cheeks are on fire, just feel them.”

“Oh, certainly, Miss Chetwynd!” said a small middy, who was of the party. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“I was not speaking to you, Mr. Harcourt. I was replying to Clara Mildmay, and I shall cancel that dance I promised you this evening if you’re not more respectful.”

“Oh, here you are!” cried Mrs. Wendover, in accents of genuine welcome. “This is the most lucky chance. You must all positively stay to lunch. I was getting tired of my own company for once in a way. John had sent a messenger to say that he would not come out till the evening. So you are evidently sent by Allah to cheer my loneliness.”

“We should all be charmed,” replied Imogen, taking her place as chief chaperon, “but it is simply impossible. Captain Warrender will tell you that we are all going to the naval ball this evening, and by the time we get to Hobart we sha’n’t have a minute to spare, to dress in time and get the sunburn off our faces.”

“Then you must come in and have raspberries and cream. It’s quite a charity to take them off our hands. Walter and Nora and I are going to the ball too, so I must insist.”

Cooled and refreshed, indeed invigorated by the raspberries and Jersey cream, with suitable accompaniments, the jocund crew bade adieu to their hostess, and trooped off to the Fairy Bower, that fern-shaded trysting place in the heart of the forest, dear to so many generations of holiday folk, where the four-in-hand drag awaited them by the fountain, and bore them safely to their several destinations. The naval ball was a pronounced success. Could it be otherwise “manned” by the officers of the half-dozen men-of-war then in harbour? The band, the waiters at the buffet, the assistants who held the dividing line in the ball-room, the attendants at the doors of the supper-room, were all in uniform, while the epaulettes and profusion of gold lace lit up the mass of civilian costumes. It was a contention seriously debated at the time, and never satisfactorily settled, as to whom the honour of being the belle of the ball should be awarded. But all agreed that the crown of the Queen of Beauty, if there had been a tournament, as in the days of chivalry, at which to present it, should have been awarded either to Mrs. Blount (nÉe Imogen Carrisforth) or to Miss Leslie, a native-born Tasmanian, whose complexion was held to be unapproachable south of the Line, and whose pre-eminence in loveliness had never before been disputed.

Each had their partisans, sworn admirers and liegemen. Each was declared to be the prettiest girl, or the handsomest woman in Australasia—for the New Zealand competitor “took a lot of beating,” as an ardent youthful admirer phrased it. It remained, however, undecided, and will probably be revived, like other vexed questions from time to time, with similar lack of finality. As to one thing, however, the unanimity was pronounced and decisive—the success of the entertainment. When “God Save the Queen” was played, it was nearer three o’clock in the morning than two, and all but the most inveterate dancers had had enough of it. Some of the junior division indeed petitioned for just one more waltz and a galop; but discipline being the soul of the navy, as well as the army, the Admiral’s fiat had decided the matter irrevocably. Carriages were ordered, shawls and wraps were donned by the matrons and maids who had “seen it out,” as their partners expressed it, and the curtain fell upon one of the most successful comedies or melodramas, as the case may be, still popular, as in old historic days, on the mirthful, mournful, but ever mysterious stage of human life.

After this crowning joy came a succession of fÊtes. Meetings of the Racing and Polo Clubs, with a gymkhana arranged by the latter society, also picnics and private parties, the Garden Party in the lovely grounds of Government House, where that befitting architectural ornament overlooks the broad winding reaches of the Derwent. All these had to be attended and availed of. The great events of the Polo Club, in “potato and bucket” race, when the competitors were compelled to dismount, pick up a potato from the ground and deposit the same in a bucket, placed for the purpose; as also the tandem race, when the aspirant riding one horse, had to drive another, with long reins, before him, also to negotiate a winding in and out course, before returning to the starting point, were both won by an active young squatter from the Upper Sturt, to the unconcealed joy of Mrs. Bruce and Imogen, the latter race, indeed, after a very close finish with a naval officer, who was the recognised champion at this and other gymkhana contests. But won it was, by the pastoral champion, though only by a nose. So after an inquiry meeting by the committee of the club, it was to him adjudged, and the trophy borne off in triumph. It is not to be supposed that the squirearchy of the land was unrepresented at these Isthmian Games, or that under such circumstances they left their wives and daughters, aunts and cousins behind; or, if such an unnatural piece of selfishness had been for a moment contemplated, that the women of the land would not have organised a revolt, declared a republic, elected a president, and marched down with banners flying to invest the capital, and make their own terms with the terrified Government of the day. No such Amazonian action was, happily, rendered necessary by sins of omission or commission on the part of their liege lords or legal protectors.

That they had sufficient courage and martial spirit for such an Émeute, no one doubted. But with the exception of a quasi-warlike observation by a Tasmanian girl, on beholding the phalanx of alien beauty arrayed at the naval ball, that on the next occasion of the sort she intended to bring her gun and shoot a girl or two “from across the Straits” by way of warning, no specific action was taken.

So the old antagonism (veiled, of course, and conventional) that has existed between the home-grown and the imported feminine product, was conducted with discreet diplomacy, and the admirers of Helen or Briseis had to content themselves with displaying personal or conversational superiority in lieu of lethal weapons.

So on the ground in drags, mail phaetons, buggies and dogcarts of the period, the female contingent arrived, chiefly before the first gun of the engagement metaphorically aroused the echoes in the glens and forest glades around Mount Wellington. The Hollywood Hall family was fully represented, the Claremonts, the Bowyers. The magnate of Holmby, Mr. Dick Dereker, in all his glory, had deposited himself and his most intimate friend, John Hampden, a new arrival from England, at the club, and was daily to be viewed by the admiring population of Hobart in Davey or Macquarie Street in company with other stars of the social firmament. Mr. Blount noticed with interest the extraordinary popularity which encircled this favourite of fortune in the chief city of his native land. As he walked down the street it was a kind of royal progress. He was the people’s idol, the uncrowned king of the happy isle. Men of note and standing crossed over to greet and shake hands with him. Even the shady characters had a soft spot in their hardened hearts for “Dicky Dereker.” Why was this adulation? Other country gentlemen were handsome and chivalrous. All of them rode, drove, shot well; they, like him, had been born “in the island,” and as such had the claims of a patriot for the suffrages of their countrymen.

But the difficulty was to find all these virtues, personal recommendations, gifts and graces, centred in one individual. The popular verdict so declared it. And if the “classes and the masses” in Tasmania had been polled as to his fitness for any post of eminence, from the vice-regal administrator of the government downward, every man, woman and child in the island would have gone “solid” for “Dicky Dereker.”

Of this resistless, all-conquering sway, Mr. Blount was shortly to have proof and confirmation, had such been needed. Sooth to say, he felt more than slight misgivings; indeed, something near to what is called an accusing conscience, with respect to his marked attentions to and quasi-friendship for Laura Claremont on the occasion of his last visit to Hollywood Hall. He was then (it may be stated for the defence) in the somewhat perilous position of having been warned off, as he considered it, by the family at Marondah, and was thus unprovided with an attraction of counterbalancing interest. “Full many a heart is caught on the rebound,” and doubtless the sympathetic manner and intellectual superiority of Laura Claremont, combined with her personal endowments, constituted a strong case for the unattached, unprotected stranger. When he returned to Tasmania, bringing his bride with him radiant with the overflowing happiness of the recent honeymoon, would the sympathetic “friend” in whose society he had so openly delighted look coldly upon him? Would her friends and compatriots combine to denounce him as an unworthy trifler, who, after paying compromising attentions, not only “rode away,” but married a former flame, not even permitting a decent interval to elapse between his preference for the old love and desertion of the new?

Much troubled by these considerations he had even thought over an indirect way of breaking the news, in a non-committal way, to the young lady, and her (perhaps) justly incensed family and friends.

But qui s’excuse s’accuse recurred to his mind with painful promptitude. So, fortunately (as it turned out), he decided to trust to time and chance for extrication from the dilemma. For, as he was entering the hospitable portal of the Tasmanian Club, with a view to luncheon and the later news items, he was joined by Claude Clinton, who at once questioned him as to subscriptions for the forthcoming ball, given by the members and players of the polo club. “How many tickets shall I send you? They’re a guinea for men and half as much for ladies; and have you heard the last engagement? No? It was only given out this morning. Laura Claremont has made up her mind at last; Dick Dereker is the happy man!”

“Send me a dozen tickets,” said Mr. Blount, who felt like John Bunyan after his burden of sins had been removed. “They have my heartiest congratulations.”

“All right,” said the omnipotent Secretary for Home Affairs; “by the way, wasn’t the fair Laura rather a friend of yours? The Tenby girls thought you were making strong running at the Hollywood Ball.”

“Every man of sense and taste must admire Miss Claremont,” he replied with diplomatic gravity, masking, however, emotions of such intensity that he had some difficulty in preserving calmness. “I was no exception to the rule, that was all.”

“Perhaps it helped to bring Master Dick to the scratch—the affair has been going on for years; if so, you did her a service. Dick is a splendid fellow, but when a man has a whole island to pick from he feels inclined to dally with a decision. However, they are to be married at once—before the House meets—not to let the honeymoon interfere with his legislative duties.”

“I am delighted to hear it,” Mr. Blount affirmed, with such evident sincerity that Mr. Clinton departed to overtake his multifarious duties, with the conviction that he was a fine, large-hearted, generous personage, as well in the matter of ball subscriptions as in the more romantic passages of life’s mystery. The young lady referred to had not come down to the naval ball for reasons of her own, or otherwise, the Squire’s health requiring her attendance upon him at the Hall. Such, at any rate, was the explanation given by the family friends:—“Dear Laura was so attached to her father, and so self-denying and conscientious in the discharge of her duties.”

Some of the frivolous division, perhaps a trifle impatient of perpetual proclamation of “Aristides the Just,” hinted that there is such a device known to the female heart—inscrutable as are its myriad emotions and minor tendencies—as the encouragement of a fervent admirer, up to a certain point, for the stimulation of a laggard lover, the adorer No. 2 being known in the unstudied phrase as the “runner up.” However that may have been, Mr. Blount took care to communicate the momentous intelligence to his wife and sister-in-law immediately upon his arrival at home. Mrs. Blount, with natural curiosity, expressed a wish to see this wonderful Laura Claremont—whom everybody praised and indeed referred to as one of the few girls in the island worthy of Dick Dereker. “I suspect you flirted with her on that driving tour—and at the ball too—you lost your card, I remember. Now confess!”

“She is a very fine girl—dark, and stately-looking. Every one admires her, but as for comparing her, et cetera, the idea is preposterous.”

“He hadn’t got our letters then, poor fellow!” said Imogen, who, fortunately, was not of a jealous disposition. “So if he made ever such a little swerve from what is called the path of duty I suppose I must forgive him. You won’t do so again, sir, I’ll see to that!”

“I hope you and Miss Claremont will be great friends. She is just the sort of woman you would like. I’ll make a point of introducing you at the Polo Ball. Here are the tickets, and a few to spare.”

“You have been most generous,” said Mrs. Bruce. “I’ll keep three for Edward, myself, and a friend, if one turns up. I daresay we shall find one or two.”

“No, take half; I bought them for the family. Perhaps some of the Upper Sturt people may turn up.”

“Quite likely,” said Imogen; “perhaps even from Bunjil! Oh, dear! what fun that would be!”

“I know what you are laughing at,” said her sister. “Do you see her joke, Val?”

“Not in the least. Let us share it, Mrs. Bruce.”

“It is a good joke,” said that merry matron, going off again into fits of laughter; “but I shall not tell you just yet. It is a secret.”

The male relative looked puzzled, admitting that the solution was beyond him; at which stage it seemed destined to remain.