There was more of it, but it fell unheeded on my ears. I paused, and thought vehemently. The white horse in the buggy, and Archie M----, Superintendent of the E---- Sunday School, with his girl! No wonder I had met so many people, and all going in the same direction.
They were the sediment of the pic-nic party, returning from their orgy.
Here was the lost chord. The whole truth flashed upon me. Now, the solid earth wheeled right-about face; east became west, and west, east.
I recognised the Victorian river road, because I saw things as they were, not as I had imagined them--though, to be sure, I still saw them as through a gla.s.s, darkly.
My worldly-wise friend, let us draw a lesson from this. If you have never been bushed, your immunity is by no means an evidence of your cleverness, but rather a proof that your experience of the wilderness is small.
If you have been bushed, you will remember how, as you struck a place you knew, error was suddenly superseded by a flash of truth; this without volition of judgment on your part, and entirely by force of a presentation of fact which your own personal error--however sincere and stubborn--had never affected, and which you were no longer in a position to repudiate.
It has always been my strong impression that this is very much like the revelation which follows death--that is, if conscious individuality be preserved; a thing by no means certain, and, to my mind, not manifestly desirable.
But if, after closing our eyes in death, we open them on an appreciable hereafter--whether one imperceptible fraction of a second, or a million centuries, may intervene--it is as certain as anything can be, that, to most of us, the true east will prove to be our former south-west, and the true west, our former north-east. How many so-called virtues will vanish then; and how many objectionable fads will shine as with the glory of G.o.d? This much is certain: that all private wealth, beyond simplest maintenance, will seem as the spoils of the street gutter; that fashion will be as the gilded fly which infests carrion; that "sport" will seem folly that would disgrace an idiot; that military force, embattled on behalf of Royalty, or Aristocracy, or Capital, will seem like---- Well, what will it seem like? Already, looking, or rather, squinting, back along our rugged and random track, we perceive that the bloodiest battle ever fought by our badly-bushed forefathers on British soil--and that only one of a series of twelve, in which fathers, sons, brothers, kinsmen, and fellow-slaves exterminated each other--was fought to decide whether a drivelling imbecile or a shameless lecher should bring our said forefathers under the operation of I Samuel, viii. (Read the chapter for yourself, my friend, if you know where you can borrow a Bible; then turn back these pages, and take a second glance at the paragraphs you skimmed over in that unteachable spirit which is the primary element of ignorance--namely, those reflections on the unfettered alternative, followed by rigorous destiny.)
Much more prosaic were my cogitations as I followed the buggy, keeping both switches at work. According to the best calculation I could make, I had ten or twelve miles of country to re-cross, besides the river; and, having no base on the Victorian side, it was a thousand to one against striking my camp on such a night. Of course, I might have groped my way to B----"s place; but if you knew Mrs. B----"s fatuous appreciation of dilemmas like mine, you would understand that such a thing was not to be thought of. I preferred dealing with strangers alone, and preserving a strict incognito. However, a pair of --- I must have, if nothing else--and that immediately. The buggy was fifteen or twenty yards ahead.
"Archie M----!" said I, in a firm, penetrating tone.
The buggy stopped. I repeated my salute.
"All right," replied Archie. "What"s the matter?"
"Come here; I want you."
The quadrant of light swept round as the young fellow turned his buggy.
"Leave your buggy, and come alone!" I shouted, careering in a circular orbit, with the light at my very heels.
"Well, I must say you"re hard to please, whoever you are," remarked Archie, stopping the horse. "Hold the reins, sweetest."
"Who is it?" asked the damsel, with apprehension in her tone.
"Don"t know, sweetest. Sounds like the voice of one crying in the wilderness."
And the light flashed on him as he felt downward for the step.
"Don"t go!" she exclaimed.
"Never mind her, Archie!" I called out. "She"s a fool. Come on!"
"What on earth"s the matter with you?" asked Archie, addressing the darkness in my direction.
"I"m clothed in tribulation. Can"t explain further. Come on! O, come on!"
"Don"t go, I tell you, Archie!" And in the bright light of the off lamp, I saw her clutch the after part of his coat as he stood on the foot-board.
"I must go, sweetest"----
"Good lad!" I exclaimed.
"I"ll be back in a minute. Let go, sweetest."
"Don"t leave me, Archie. I"m frightened. Just a few minutes ago, I saw a white thing gliding past."
"Spectral illusion, most likely. There was a hut-keeper murdered here by the blacks, thirty years ago, and they say he walks occasionally.
But he can"t hurt you, even if he tried. Now let go, sweetest, and I"ll say you"re a good girl."
"Archie, you"re cruel; and I love you. Don"t leave me. Fn-n-n, ehn-n-n, ehn-n-n!" Sweetest was in tears.
"This is ridiculous!" I exclaimed. "Come on, Archie; I won"t keep you a minute. The mountain can"t go to Mahomet; and to state the alternative would be an insult to your erudition. Come on!"
"O, Archie, let"s get away out of this fearful place," sobbed the wretched obstruction. "Do what I ask you this once, and I"ll be like a slave the rest of my life."
"Well, mind you don"t forget when the fright"s over," replied Archie, resuming his seat. "That poor beggar has something on his mind, whoever he is; but he"ll have to pay the penalty of his dignity."
"Too true," said I to myself, as Archie started off at a trot; "for the dignity is like that of Pompey"s statue, "th" austerest form of naked majesty"--a dignity I would gladly exchange for what Goldsmith thoughtlessly calls "the glaring impotence of dress"."
I followed the buggy at a Chinaman"s trot, thinking the thing over, and switching myself desperately, for the night was getting hotter and darker, and mosquitos livelier. You will bear in mind that I was now retracing my way.
Keeping on the track which skirted the river timber--the cool, impalpable dust being grateful to my bare feet--I heard some people on horseback pa.s.s along the parallel track which ran by the fence. Demoralised by the conditions of my unhappy state, I again paused to eavesdrop. Good! One fellow was relating an anecdote suited to gentlemen only. Thanking Providence for the tendency of the yarn, I darted diagonally across the clearing to intercept these brethren, and was rapidly nearing the party, when Pup, thinking I was after something, crossed my course in the dark. I tripped over him, and landed some yards ahead, in one of the five patches of nettles in the county of Moira. By the time I had cleared myself and recovered my equanimity, the hors.e.m.e.n had improved their pace, and were out of reach.
A few minutes afterward, I became aware of the footfalls of a single horse, coming along behind me at a slow trot. I paused to make one more solicitation.
When the horseman was within twenty yards of where I stood, he pulled up and dismounted. Then he struck a match, and began looking on the ground for something he had dropped. The horse shied at the light, and refused to lead; whereupon, after giving the animal a few kicks, he threw the reins over a post of the fence close by, and continued his search, lighting fresh matches. a.s.suming an air of unconcern, so as to avoid taking him by surprise, I drew nearer, and noted him as a large, fair young man, fashionably dressed.
"Good evening, sir," said I urbanely.
With that peculiar form of rudeness which provokes me most, he flashed a match on me, instead of replying to my salutation.
"Are you satisfied?" I asked sardonically, switching myself the while, and still capering from the effect of the nettles.
He darted towards his horse, but before he reached the bridle my hand was on his shoulder.
"What do you want?" he gasped.
"I want your ----," I replied sternly. "I"m getting full up of the admiration of the G.o.ds; I want the admiration of my fellow-men. In other words, I"m replete with the leading trait of Adamic innocence; I want the sartorial concomitants of Adamic guilt. Come! off with them!" and with that I snapped the laces of his balmorals; for he had sunk to the ground, and was lying on his back. "And seeing that I may as well be hanged for a whole suit as for a pair of ----, I"ll just take the complete outer ply while my hand"s in; leaving you whatever may be underneath. Let me impress upon you that I don"t attempt to defend this action on strictly moral grounds,"
I continued, peeling off his coat and waistcoat with the celerity of a skilful butcher skinning a sheep for a bet. "I think we may regard the transaction as a pertinent ill.u.s.tration of Pandulph"s aphorism--to wit, that "He who stands upon a slippery place, makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up."
When the hurly-burly"s done, I must get you to favour me with your address, so that"---- Here my antagonist suddenly gave tongue.
During an eventful life, I have frequently had occasion to observe that when woman finds herself in a tight place, her first impulse is to set the wild echoes flying; whereas, man resists or submits in silence, except, perhaps, for a few bad words ground out between his teeth.
Therefore, when the legal owner of the ---- which I was in the act of unfastening, suddenly splintered the firmament with a double-barrelled screech, the thought flashed on my mind that he was one of those De Lacy Evanses we often read of in novels; and in two seconds I was fifty yards away, trying to choose between the opposing anomalies of the case.
A little reflection showed the balance of probability strongly against a disguise which I have never met with in actual life; but by this time I heard the clatter of horses" feet approaching rapidly from both sides.
The prospective violation of my incognito by a hap-hazard audience made my position more and more admirable from a mythological point of view, so I straightway vaulted over the fence, and lay down among some c.o.c.kspurs.
Within the next few minutes, several people on horseback came up to the scene of the late attempted outrage. I can"t give the exact number, of course, as I could only judge by sound, but there might have been half a dozen.
A good deal of animated conversation followed--some of it, I thought, in a feminine voice--then the whole party went trampling along the fence, close to my ambush, and away out of hearing.
The mosquitos were worse than ever. I pulled two handfuls of crop to replace the switches I had thrown away on attempting to cajole the Chevalier d"Eon out of his ----. My mind was made up. I would solicit this impracticable generation no longer. I would follow the river road for eight or ten miles, and then wait in some secluded spot for the first peep of daylight.
I began to blame myself for not having gone straight on when Archie unconsciously gave me my longitude. To get home in the dark was, of course, entirely out of the question; all that I could do was to aim approximately in the right direction.
I was pacing along at the double, when a lighted window, a couple of hundred yards from the road, attracted my attention. Like Frankenstein"s unhappy Monster, I had a hankering, just then, for human vicinity; though, like It, I met with nothing but horrified repulse. You will notice that Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, with true womanly delicacy, avoids saying, in so many words, that the student omitted to equip his abnormal creation with a pair of ----.
But Frankenstein"s oversight in this matter will, I think, sufficiently account for that furtive besiegement of human homes, that pathetic fascination for the neighbourhood of man, which so long refused to accept rebuff.
With ----, man is whole as the marble, founded as the rock, as broad and general as the casing air. Without ----, unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. The ---- standard is the Labarum of modern civilisation. By this sign shall we conquer.
Since that night by the Murray, methinks each pair of ---- I see hanging in front of a draper"s shop seems to bear aright, IN HOC SIGNO VINCES!