An Outback Marriage by Banjo Paterson (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📕

with Peggy. They’ll sympathise with her efforts to prove herself an honest woman. It isn’t marrying too much that will get her into trouble⁠—it’s the other thing. But we have the date and place of her alleged marriage with William Grant; and if this old Considine can prove, by documents, mind you, not by his own simple word⁠—because it’s a hundred to one the jury wouldn’t believe him⁠—I say, if he can prove that she married him on that very day and at that very place, then she’s beaten. No one on earth could swallow the story of her marrying two different people on the same day.”

“Hugh can go,” said Charlie. “He’ll have to do his best this time. It all depends on getting hold of this Considine, eh? Well, Hugh’ll have to get him. If he fails he needn’t show his face amongst us any more.”

Mary Grant was called in and told the great news, and then Pinnock started out to find Hugh. But before the lawyer could see him, Mary met him in the garden.

Hugh did not see that he could be of any use in the case, and wanted to be quit of Kuryong for good. Seeing Mary day after day, he had become more and more miserable as the days went by. He determined at last to go away altogether, and, when once he had made up his mind, only waited for a chance to tell her that he was going. The chance came as she left the office after consulting with Pinnock.

“Miss Grant,” he said, “if you don’t mind, I think I will resign my management of this station. I will make a start for myself or get a job somewhere else. You will easily get someone to take my place.”

She looked at him keenly for a while.

“I didn’t expect this of you,” she said, bitterly. “The rats leave the sinking ship. Is that it?”

His face flushed a dull red. “You know better than that,” he said. “I would stop if I could be of any use, but what is there I can do?”

“Why do you want to leave?”

“I want to get away from here⁠—I want to get out of the hills for awhile.”

Mary knew, as well as if he had told her, that what he wanted was to go where he could forget her and see whether absence would break the chain; and triumph lit up her eyes, for it was pleasant even in the midst of her troubles to know that he still cared. Then she came to a swift decision.

“Will you do something for me away from the hills, then?” she said.

“Where?”

“Up North. I want someone to find that man Considine that your brother and Mr. Carew met. You know how important it is to me. Will you do it for me?”

Hugh would have jumped at the chance to risk his life for her lightest wish.

“I will go anywhere and do my best to find anyone you want,” he said; “When do you want me to start?”

“See Mr. Pinnock and your brother about that. They will tell you all about it; and if you do manage to find this man, why, you can talk about leaving after that if you want to. Will you go for me?”

“Yes. I will go, Miss Grant; and I will never come back till I find this man⁠—if he is alive.”

She laid her hand on his arm.

“I know you will do all you can,” she said, “but in any case, whether you find him or not⁠—come back again!”

XXIV The Second Search for Considine

Before leaving Hugh was fully instructed what to do if he compassed the second finding of Considine. He was to travel under another name, for fear that his own would get about, and cause the fugitive to make another hurried disappearance.

He took a subpoena to serve on the old man as a last resource.

Charlie was emphatic. “Go up and get hold of the old vagrant, and find out all about it. Don’t make a mess of it, whatever you do. Remember the old lady, and Miss Grant, and the youngsters, and all of us depend on you in this business. Don’t come back beaten. Don’t let anything stop you. Get him drunk or get him sober⁠—friendly or fighting⁠—but get the truth, and get the proofs of it. Choke it out of the old hound somehow.”

Hugh said that he would, and departed, weighed down by responsibility, to execute his difficult mission. He had to go into an untravelled country to get the truth out of a man who did not want to tell it; and the time allowed was short, as the case could not be postponed much longer.

He travelled by sea to Port Faraway, a tropical sweltering township by the Northern seas of Australia, and when he reached it felt like one of the heroes in Tennyson’s Lotus Eaters⁠—he had come “into a land wherein it seemed always afternoon.”

Reeves, the buffalo shooter, was a well-known man, but to find his camp was another matter. No one seemed to have energy enough to take much interest in the quest.

Hugh interviewed a leading citizen at the hotel, and got very little satisfaction. He said, “I want to get out to Reeves’s camp. Do you know where it is, and how one gets there?”

“Well,” said the leading citizen, putting his feet up on the arms of his long chair and gasping for air, “Le’s see! Reeves’s camp⁠—ah! Where is he camped now?”

“I don’t know,” said Hugh. “I wish I did. That’s what I want to find out.”

“Hopkins’d know. Hopkins, the storekeeper. He sends out the supplies. Did you ask him?”

“No,” said Hugh. “I didn’t. I’ll go and ask him now.”

“Too hot to bustle round now,” said the leading citizen, lighting his pipe. “What’ll you have to drink? Have some square; it’s the best drink here.”

Hugh thought it well to fall in with the customs of the inhabitants, so he had a stiff gin-and-water at