THE STORY OF A SELECTION.

Evening Star, Issue 11666, 28 September 1901, Page 2

THE STORY OF A SELECTION.

ff [Bt Ethel Turner.] A. CHAPTER XIV. t noatE to our harbor. City of ships. , City of the world. (For all races are here, jjjj All the iand3 of the earth make contributions , , hero;) i, Proud and passionate city—mettlesome, mad, jj extravagant city; J; Spring; up, 0 city—not for peace alone, but > be indeed yourself warlike; | War, red war, is ray song through your j streets, O city. jj Down through tho excited waters of the t harbor came the great ship Utopia, tho : fussy little tug running on ahead. j Away near the Heads the stretching blue * had danced almost a 3 unfhrrowed •by the ;i lines of boats as outside, where the ocean's ;. ways lay wide. ; But as the ship oame down, down closer : r to the city, a stately, untroubled belle, on the arm of her hot, nervous fidgety little partner, many of the passengers felt with istonishment they had never seen so many irater craft in all their lives before. Jlowi«g boats—scores and scores of them!' They looked like flies on an agitated surface of • ■ translucent honey. Sailing boats!. Surely, not on© stitch of canvas owned by the city was out of use. Poised, waiting, up and down, everywhere ; you felt there was going to be a storm, and there were the white gulls come in flocks to flutter and dip and rise till it began. The ferry boats! They went their hurried journeys to and fro, across to North Shore, to Mosman's and Neutral Bay, to Manly, and you could fancy they were looking over their shoulders all the way and longing to come back. Ocean-going boats, leaning at the Woolloomooloo wharves, or anchored out in the stream, they were black with eager people, and waved from every point long strings of brilliant flags, the flags of half the world. America was there, shaking out the stars and stripes from a mail steamer, a San Francisco timber boat, passing along to berth in Darling Harbor, and a transport come to take food for the army in tho Philippines. From one of the men-o'-war in Farm Cove floated Japan's white flag with its red chrysanthemums j France had her war boat, with its red, white, and blue ensign, also in the cove. All the others, half a dozen of, them, floated the white ensigns of England. • Up at the quay lay the mammoth Friedc- . rich der Grosse, Germany's black, red, and white pennant flying in the wind amid her gay string of bunting; and round the • corner, in Darling Harbor, among the boats that ha<l come down, heavily laden, from the rivers, the boats from all the other colonics, and Fiji and Noumea, Russia and Norway both were represented. And the city had the City of Bine Waves gone mad? As the Utopia made her slow progress up the harbor those on board were able to catch a breath of the excitement from the land. The wharves at Woolloomooloo seemed a black mass of humanity. The windows of the warehouses were lined with faces; men and small boys had taken up vantage points on scaffolding, cranes, the very roofs of the wharf buildings. On the green, parklike slopes of the Domain thousands were patiently waiting, white or gay-colored parasols and dresses enlivening the sombre garments of the men. ,"' Challis stood at the side of the boat with trembling knees and rounded eyes. Sirs '•' Cameron was beside her, very pale, struggling hard for composure, putting her hand ' to her throat secretly now and again to smooth tho lumps that seemed to be rising there. A warm reception she had had no doubt her child would have; indeed the 'Melbourne papers she had seen had said . big preparations were to be made for her reception; for was not this the city of her birth? The eager open-handed city thathad made it possible for the world to judge of her genius?. But tho mother's wildest thoughts had never dreamed of anything like this. Royalty itself had never on any of its journeyings been welcomed _ „ in more I / paled. She slid down her hand and caught and held tightly in it on© of the small, thin hands of her gifted Child. Yet great as the honor undoubtedly Seemed, had the power to change things - been hers she would have swept the wharves clear of all that strange-faced crowd and have had standing there alone, looking up ■■ rft her, the husband her leart was throbbing for, the children she yearned for, and yet would hardly know. ij, • The lady who had begged the photograph pressed her way up. "What does it all mean? Did ever you * see such excitement? Is it really as Mrs Graham says, the welcome for Miss Cameron? I never saw anything to equal it in my life. My dear, my dear, you are the most fortunate, girl in the world; I am proud to have shaken hands with you, honored to have sat at the same table. See, \ here is my travelling inkpot and pen—k v, rite me your autograph, darling." Mrs Goodeuough bustled up and caught at ths mother's arm. "Such excitement is enough to kill her; give her two of these quinine tablets, and keep these in your pocket to give if you are not—— And you are pale. Here, I have my flask of tonic—you must, you must indeed take some. You will never bear up through all the congratulations if you do not. Weil, well; I must say I have never seen anything like this in my'life." Challis stood as white as if carved in marble; sometimes her little soft underlip quivered. Sometimes she gave an almost piteous glance round as if seeking an impossible escape. She had had warm welcomes, and even cheers and a little bunting in. many towns, but what was this Fhe htid fallen upon? The gangways were hardly down before there hurried on board from the wharf a gentleman in a tall hat, and two others with the ungroomed, long-haired appearance of the musician the world over. One of them boTo a moderate-sized bouquet of white flowers, and another a small harp of roses that loNqked a. little dashed with the sun and dust.\ "Miss CameronVMiss Cameron," was the call, echoed all akYig the deck. The captain himself came u\and took the little girl and her mother do\tn to the men. They were warmly shakel hands with, their healths and the voylge asked after, ami the flowers presented. Then one of the musicians began to rAd an address couched in the most flatten* terms, but half-way through the tall-hjftted gentleman tapped his arm and whispered and looked at his watch. And the musician nodded and turned over the leaves of tho address : .nd shook his head doubtfully, and looked hastily also at his watch. "My dear Miss Cameron," he said, n.d rolled the big paper up, " I shall really have to keep this for a more opportune time. We had thought the Utopia would not have been here until four this afternoon, when all our arrangements would have gone well. But now the Mayor and the Euterpe Society and all the musical bodies in the town are, of course, engaged in seeing the Bush Contingent off. We expect the procession any minute—indeed, it must be neariv in Pitt street by this." t Mrs Cameron said a few graceful words, in which she begged them not to waste time now. She was assured by all their kind speeches of the.welcome her daughter had in this her native city, and she expressed her sense of the good fortune that had awaited them, inasmuch us the Utopia had arrived in time to sec an event of such importance as the departure of the ~ Bush Contingent. No one could have fue&sed at the dear, fatuous notion she had een nursing in that sensible head of hew until a moment back. As for Challis—Challis put her head over * lier f,i«t fading harp and laughed—laughed j; uncontrollably a minute or two. Then sne 1,.- «tretched out her hand and touched one rf jfc,,. the musician's sleeves. "Couldn't we get » off and see the procession?" she said. W. The musician looked at her eagerly, ad|jj|;minngly. "Just what I was going to su»ppgesfc," he cried. "Come, come on—we've pb# ot a carnage out here for vou, and if we've W&?y we'll just get up* into Macquurie §s£s?***** tu time.

He and his front's swept the two voyagers off their feet, and carried them with the pushing throng to the gangway. None of the passengers had any tun© to look at them—all were a littlo off their balance at tho time, rushing about with faces broken op into tears and laughter, kissing and throwing arms round those they had been long parted from, wildly imploring stewards for gladstoncs and handbags from their cabins.

In the crush Challis whispered to her mother " Oh, aren't I glad it's not for me" in a tone of fervent thankfulness.

When they were down on the wharf the rapturous meetings on all sides sent their eyes hungrily searching the crowd again for their own home welcomers. But there seemed no one, no one, look as they would, and they went slowly down tho company's wharf with the welcomers the city had sent to the hired open carriage outside. Challis and her mother sat facing the horses, the tall-hatted gentleman and one musician sat opposite to them, the other went on the box. It had been the Committee's intention to bid the coachman wear white favors in honor of the visitor's youth. But the item had been forgotteu, and tho man wore instead three of the Contingent medals boys were selling in the streets. The carriage made a snail's progress along the quay crowded with the emptyings of the ferry boats, and slowly, slowly climbed* up to Bridge street, which was on the line of march. The multitude looked at the vehicle. "Who's the kid?" shouted a youth. And a bright young Australian yelled back:

"The Colonel's kid—going to meet her pa and say good-bye." On which the human sea lifted up its lungs, and hurrahed wildly, till something new came along to attract its interest. So Challis had her cheers. But in Macquarie street all traffic was suspended, and a hoarse, red-faced man in somo sort of uniform charged at the open carriage, and ordered it to go back, as if it were no more important than a brokenspringed buggy with one horse. " Have to take yer up Castlcreagh street, ladies," said the driver, regretfully; "if yer'd been f arf an hour sooner we'd have just got up to the 'ospital, and yer'd 'ave seen it all fine."

"Oh," said Challis. eagerly, to the musicians, "see. sec (hat lovely heap of wood ; look—over there—those women are getting oil'—there would be lots of room for us—oh, do let's get out." In three minutes the little party was sitting, clinging, or standing on a pile of timber outside a half-built house, and the carriage had backed, backed away to take a clear course up deserted Castlcreagh street. The sudden roll of a drum sent its electric vibration through the tense multitude. The cry of " Here they come !" raised falsely a dozen times during the last two hours now had the positive ring in it that' carried entire conviction.

"Oh, look mother —see, here come the horses—doesn't it remind you of the Jubilee crowd in London?" said Challis.

But Mrs Cameron pushed roughly at her shoulder. "Come here," she said, hoarsely; "change places with me—don't fall—there, hold fast. Let me get lower down." A man was fighting his way through the throng! a grey-bearded man in a well-cut lijht grey suit and a white helmet; and such was his determination that five minutes after Mrs Cameron had seen him he had worked his way through twenty yards of solid crowd, and was standing just below her. Mrs Cameron turned to the musician, who had been at much pains to secure a little room for himself on the timber. "Mr Jardine," she said, "will you please get down and give up your place to my husband —I have not seen him for six years?" Jardine climbed down cheerfully, but also of necessity. Cameron pulled himself into the vacated place. They were side by side at last, and neither could speak; they just looked at each other with white faces—looked, looked. Finally their hands went together. A choked little voice came from above after a minute or two: "Me, too, daddie - -speak to me, too." And it was then he remembered his child, as well as his wife, was come back to him.

He reached up and squeezed tho eager hand; he put his other hand round her kitie shoe, and squeezed that too. Challis leaned down and kissed the top of his helmet.

"I said you'd have a helmet on," she said, wjth a.hysterical little laugh. His hand went back to his wife's. "Is there no way of getting out of this nibble?" she said.

"You might be crashed to death—there's nothing for it now but to sit still till it is over."

"Why—why weren't you on the wharf?" "I was—of course I was. I saw you both plainly just as they put the gangway down. But there was an accident—a little child nuar me was knocked down by a luggage truck, badly hurt, at the moment; there seemed no one else to give the mother a hand. By the time I'd got him up, and into a cab, and found a fellow willing to go with her to tho doctor's you had gone. They told me the carriage had come up Bridge street. I have been fighting my way and looking for you ever since." "The children?" said the mother. "All well, quite well; I couldn't bring them."

"No. Oh, to get out of this hateful crowd."

"Here they come," Challis said; "no, they are only policemen." The fine horses and men of the Mounted Police rode by, then a small body of Lancers ; after these marched some two hundred sailors of the Royal Navy, and perhaps half that number of Royal Marines. Then the Busbies! And now the crowd took the I'eins off itself and gave head to its madness. It hurrahed itself hoarse; waved its arms and its handkerchiefs, and its hat and its head; it flung flowers and flags and colored paper; it hung recklessly from roofs, and walls, and doors, chimneys, fences, lampposts, balconies, verandah posts, and it yelled: "There's Jack," "Good-bye Jo," "Come back, Wilson," "Shoot 'em down, Tom." "Hurrah, Cooper," "Luck to you, Fogarty," "There's Storey," "Hurrah, Watt." It handed up drinks to the thirsty horsemen; it pressed handkerchiefs, cigars, and sweets indiscriminately upon them. In return the Bushies waved their helmets and little toy flags; ono held up a small fox-terrier, another an opossum, by the tail; they rode along with one arm free for handshaking all along the route, threw kisses to the excited women, even at times leaned down and kissed some tip-toe eager girl in a white dress and a wonderful hat.

They looked as military as one could wish now. Cameron was amazed to think this was the same material Tie had seen drilling. A liner body of men had never passed down the streets of any city; they sat their grand horses magnificently; you knew there was nothing they could 'not do with the splendid beasts. Tho khaki uniform, and the khaki helmet, and the sunburnt ruddy faces made a healthful, workmanlike study in brown.

Thats the dog, Bushie," said Cameron to Challis; " everyone in the colony is interested in him; the men say he will be vcrv useful."

The crowd yelled " Bushie, Bushie; hurrah, good old doggie," as the intelligent sheep dog came into sight. "Here's Stevenson; see the man on the left, Molly," Cameron said; " our best friend; good-bye, Mortimer, good luck; good-bye, old fellow; good-bye."

Mortimer waved his helmet -gaily. "What a fine fellow," said Mrs Cameron, "and what a good face. Who is the old man?"

"Why, it's old Stevenson; yes, just like him to do that," Cameron answered. The old squatter had ridden alongsido the Bushmen the whole of the line of march; his fdee was working with excitement; every time a cheer went up from the crowd ho cheered too, standing up from time to time in his saddle and waving his soft felt hat He kept beside his son as much as he could; he was almost bursting with the pride of his position. Challis's eyes were full of tears.

"Oh!" she said, "what a very dreadful thing if that nice man .should be killed " She was quite captivated by the sunny smile Mortimer had given their group. "There's not a better fellow in the world " Cameron said warmly. '

The khaki died away in the distance, the

prancing horses were gone, the sound of thoband grew fainter and fainter. _ Yet a little time and the transports would be plunging through the Heads with them, carrying them forward as fast as might be to dye the veldt red with their own blood or that of tho 'Boers.

CHAPTER XV. , HEART TO HEART. Wc will not speak of years to-night, For what have years to bring. But larger floods of lore and light, And sweeter songs to sing.

They were in a quiet room at the hotel at last. Thoy had lost sight of the tallhatted gentleman and one musician entirely ; the other had said thoughtfullv that he would not intrude.

"This is not the way we meant to welcome your daughter, Mrs Cameron," he said, laughing, as he clung by one hand to the timber; "but as you see, we're all mad together to-day. By to-morrow we shall have calmed down a "little, and there will be a deputation, and everything in order. You'll bo at the Australia, of course." .

" Yes; I have rooms waiting for them," Cameron said ouietlv.

So the plea-ant, long-haired fellow drifted away, and Cameron at the first chance steered his little family out of the thinning crowd, and found a cab to take them to the peace of the hotel. They took their hats off. Waiters seem?d to think eating was a necessity, and brought in a meal, and stood, two of them, to help s-rve.

Mrs Cameron turned her head. "We would rather wait on ourselves," she said. "We have everything that we shall need, thank you, so you may go." Cameron drew a relieved breath, though ho would as soon have thought of dismissing the men himself as of calmly ordering one of .those magnificent colonels out of his w;iy during the afternoon. " Now we can be cosy," Challis said, and sat down on her father's knee instead of using the chair the waiter had placed for lur.

" Are we like what you thought?" she asked. " Someway, 1 can't think now how I could have fancied you would be any different. Oh, I'm sure you're just like what 1 thought, only " She paused then, and a little sensitive Hush ran up into her cheeks. She had almost said "Only.your brard is grey." But, her eyes had gone to its greyness. " Yes," ho said, a little sadly. " I didn't wait for vou. Molly, did I? We alwavs said we would grow old together, but I have left you far behind." He hardly knew his wife. Time seemed to have turned back for her. There, was not a wrinkle on her skin. The sharp winters had given a bloom like girlhood's to her cheeks, and the varied life and rest from domestic worries had brought the spring back into her blood. The wife who had gone away had been shrinking, careworn. She had worn shabby bonnets of her own trimming, dresses she had turned and turned again. This one had the quiet assured manner of a woman accustomed to travel. She wore a tailor-made' fawn coat and skirt whose very severity accentuated its style. There was the hallmark of Paris on her bonnet of violets.

Cameron sent a fleeting thought of gratitude to Mortimer, who had made it possible for his own clothes not to blush b2side such garments. They were a quiet little party, and Challis did most of the ialkiug. Cameron looked at his wife when she wis occupied with the teacups. Her searching eyes fastened on him when he turned to speak to his little daughter. Once when he passed a plate to Challis she noticed his hands against the snow the tablecloth—hands she did not know at all, so rough and weather-marked and deeply brown they were. But she asked no question.. Instinctively she felt there was something to bl told to her, and she hung back from the knowledge, knowing the telling would be pain to him. "Oh dear," said Challis, "if only you had brought Bart down, too. daddie, and he was sitting just here on this chair next to me."

"I thought it was Hermie you wanted most," the mother said.

"Ah. Bermie—l want Hermie to sleep with—no, not to sleep' with, for we 'shau't shut our eves at all, but just to lie in the dark and talk and talk." " Roly wanted to come," Cameron said. " He"s war mad, of course; he's painted the name ' Transvaal Vale' on the slip rails."

"On tin what?" said Mis Cameron. Cameron went darkly red. "The—gate," he said " What else does he do? I want to know about Roly," Challis said, eagerly. "He wears a football jersey most of the time," said the father, " and is to be met r.t any hour of the day hung all over with the table knives aud the tin-opener and the corkscrew and the sharpening steel. Also he .carries round his neck a string of what I think he calls double hungers—these are his cartridges. And he came possessed of an old tent in some way—the railway navvies gave it to him. I believe—and he has pitched it just outside the back door, and sleeps in it all night." , " Oh, dear! oh, dear! the night air—he will catch a dreadful chill," cried the mother, used now to English nights. " Not he, he's a hardy little chap," said Cameron.

" More, more," said Challis ; " he's great fun, I flunk. Tell some more about him, daddie."

"A neighbor, young Stevenson—you temember the Stevensons of Coolooli/Molly? —gave him half a crown the other day, and of course he went off to Wilgandra and laid in a stock of crackers. He made a rather ingenious fortification that he called Spionkop, and invited us all out to see it. You don't know Darkic, the cattle dog, of course —we've only had him four years—Darkie naturally came too. He's rather a curiosity in his'wav, old Darkie; seems to have a natural love for fire, and goes off his heard with excitement whenever a cracker is let off or the boys make a bonfire. Well, he made enough noise barking and yelping over Holy's display to satisfy even that young man. Presently Roly put a whole packet of hii double hungers on the top of his fort, and—what he did not tell me till afterwards —a quantity of dynamite he had purloined from the navvies. Then he put a' lighted match near a long piece of string, and cut down to us- as hard as he could. Just at the critical moment, when we were getting our ears ready for the big explosion. Darkie gave a frantic bark of delight, bounded to the fort, and seized the whole packet in his mouth. There wasn't time even to shout at him- -there came a tremendous explosion, and the air seemed full of stones and earth and Darkie. The old fellow must have been blown .six feet up in the air. I think we all shut our eyes, not liking the thought of seeing the poor old dog descend in a thousand pieces. But when we opened them he was down on the ground, barking and yelping with more furious delight than ever, and except for a badly singed coat and a burnt tongue not a bit the worse for his elevation."

( -iii-H Cameron was looking disturbed. He seems to do very dangerous thhm-s " she said. " Dynamite, and knives, and sleeping out of doors "

Cameron laughed. " That's what Miss Browne says," he answered; "but he always turns up safe and sound." •

Miss Browne," repeated Mrs Cameron Cameron s eyes dropped to his plate, and ho drank deeply at his tea to put off the moment of his. answer.

"Who is Miss Browne," his wife asked again.

Cameron moved his eyes to a button on her coat.

1 was obliged to change ladv helps," he said. Mrs Cameron's face expressed absolute alarm. "Miss Macintosh—is not Miss Macintosh still with you?—von did not tell me—why did she go? How long has she been gone?" Cameron looked white. "Some—little time," he said. "She—went to be married."

"And is this• other—is Miss Browne as good?—oh, it would almost be impossiblehave you had to change much ?"

Cartieron reassured "her on that point. "Miss Browne had been with them ever since Miss 'Macintosh left."

"But how long is that?— You don't tell me, she cried.

Ganieron looked at a lower button. " Some—time," he repeated faintly. "Jim!" she cried, and almost "sharply, "have you been keeping thiiigs from me—, how long has Miss Macintosh been gone?'' He lifted his eyes and looked at her; the day of reckoning had come. " She left six months after you went," ho answered.

The news held Mrs Cameron speechless for three minutes.

" This other person, Miss Browne—is she as good?" she asked at length. Cameron breathed hard and cut a slice of bread.

" She does her best," he said, " but she is not —very capable."

'• Jim," said Mrs Cameron, " is there anything else? Have you lost your position?" He bent his head a little. He merely nodded, and she might have thought it a careless nod only her eye suddenly saw the trembling of his work-marked hands.

"Chaliis," she said, "go away—leave us alone."

The child put down her spoon and fork and vanished.

Cameron stood up, looking fixedly at the in pet, waiting with bowed head for her questions.

'"Have you hidden anything else?" she s»id._ "Are any of the children dead?" "None of them are dead," he said. "Are any of them deformed or hurt in any v.ay?"

'" None of them are hurt—they are hi good health," he said. "Have you ceased to love me?" Her voice was losing, the note .of fear that made it hard and unnatural.

He looked at her, and his eyes swam. Her arms were round him, she was kissing him, kissing his wet eyes, his trembling lips, stroking his cheeks, crying over him.

"You are afraid to tell me—me, your own little wife,. something . that does not matter at all. What can anything matter? We are all alive, and we love each other, as we have always done. Darling, darling, don't look like that; put your head here, here on my breast,. My husband, my darling, this is Molly, who went all through the ups and downs with you; you never used to be afraid to tell her anything." He tried to speak, but sobs shook him instead.

"Hush," she said. "There, don't talk; don't try to tell me. I know, darling. You lost the position, and you couldn't get another, and you're all as poor as poor can be—pooh! what does that matter? You have none of you starved, since yon are all alive, and the end has come. Poor hands, poor hands"—her kisses and tears covered them—have they been breaking stones that the children might have bread ?" "Molly," he said, anguished, "your worst thought cannot picture what I have brought them to." She trembled a little—Hermie, little Floss, the boys. -