“That’s just it,” said Medlicot; “we do not quite understand each other. But we might believe in each other all the same, and then the understanding would come. But it isn’t just that which I want to say; such talking rarely does any good.”
“What is it, then?”
“You may perhaps be right about that man Nokes.”
“No doubt I may. I know I’m right. When I asked him whether he’d been at my shed, what made him say that he hadn’t been there at night time? I said nothing about night time. But the man was there at night time, or he wouldn’t have used the word.”
“I’m not sure that that is evidence.”
“Perhaps not in England, Mr. Medlicot, but it’s good enough evidence for the bush. And what made him pretend he didn’t know the distances? And why can’t he look a man in the face? And why should the boy have said it was he if it wasn’t? Of course, if you think well of him you’re right to keep him. But you may take it as a rule out here that when a man has been dismissed it hasn’t been done for nothing. Men treated that way should travel out of the country. It’s better for all parties. It isn’t here as it is at home, where people live so thick together that nothing is thought of a man being dismissed. I was obliged to discharge him, and now he’s my enemy.”
“A man may be your enemy without being a felon.”
“Of course he may. I’m his enemy in a way, but I wouldn’t hurt a hair of his head unjustly. When I see the attempts made to burn me out, of course I know that an enemy has been at work.”
“Is there no one else has got a grudge against you?”
Harry was silent for a moment. What right had this man to cross-examine him about his enmities—the man whose own position in the place had been one of hostility to him, whom he had almost suspected of harbouring Nokes at the mill simply because Nokes had been dismissed from Gangoil? That suspicion was, indeed, fading away. There was something in Medlicot’s voice and manner which made it impossible to attribute such motives to him. Nevertheless the man was a free-selector, and had taken a bit of the Gangoil run after a fashion which to Heathcote was objectionable politically, morally, and socially. Let Medlicot in regard to character be what he might, he was a free-selector, and a squatter’s enemy, and had clinched his hostility by employing a servant dismissed from the very run out of which he had bought his land.
“It is hard to say,” he replied at length, “who have grudges—or against whom—or why. I suppose I have a great grudge against you, if the truth is to be known; but I shan’t burn down your mill.”
“I’m sure you won’t.”
“Nor yet say worse of you behind your back than I will to your face.”
“I don’t want you to think that you have occasion to speak ill of me, either one way or the other. What I mean is this—I don’t quite think that the evidence against Nokes is strong enough to justify me in sending him away; but I’ll keep an eye on him as well as I can. It seems that he left our place early this morning; but the men are not supposed to be there on Sundays, and of course he does as he pleases with himself.”
The conversation then dropped, and in a little time Harry made some excuse for leaving them, and returned to the house alone, promising, however, that he would not start for his night’s ride till after the party had come back to the station.
“There is no hurry at all,” he said; “I shan’t stir for two hours yet, but Mickey will be waiting there for stores for himself and the German.”
“That means a nobbler for Mickey,” said Kate. “Either of those men would think it a treat to ride ten miles in and ten miles back, with a horse-load of sugar and tea and flour, for the sake of a glass of brandy-and-water.”
“And so would you,” said Harry, “if you lived in a hut by yourself for a fortnight, with nothing to drink but tea without milk.”
The old lady and Mrs. Heathcote were soon seated on the grass, while Medlicot and Kate Daly roamed on together. Kate was a pretty, modest girl, timid withal and shy, unused to society, and therefore awkward, but with the natural instincts and aptitudes of her sex. What the glass of brandy-and-water was to Mickey O’Dowd after a fortnight’s solitude in a bush hut, with tea, dampers, and lumps of mutton, a young man in the guise of a gentleman was to poor Kate Daly. A brother-in-law, let him be ever so good, is after all no better than tea without milk. No doubt Mickey O’Dowd often thought about a nobbler in his thirsty solitude, and so did Kate speculate on what might possibly be the attractions of a lover. Medlicot probably indulged in no such speculations; but the nobbler, when brought close to his lips, was grateful to him as to others. That Kate Daly was very pretty no man could doubt.
“Isn’t it sad that he should have to ride about all night like that?” said Kate, to whom, as was proper, Harry Heathcote at the present moment was of more importance than any other human being.
“I suppose he likes it.”
“Oh no,
