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 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 DEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES. 
 
 THE IVORY GATE. By Walter Besant. 3 vols. 
 TRUST-MONEY. By William Westall. 3 vols. 
 
 A FAMILY LIKENESS. By Mrs. B. M. Croker. 
 
 3 vols. 
 
 MRS. JULIET. By Mrs. Alfred Hunt. 3 vols. 
 TIME'S REVENGES. By David Christie Murray. 
 
 3 vols. 
 
 THE MASTER OF ST. BENEDICT'S. By Alan 
 St, Aubvn. 2 vols. 
 
 BARBARA DERING. By Am^lie Rives. 2 vols. 
 
 GEOFFORY HAMILTON. By Edward H. Cooper. 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 THE THOUSAND AND ONE DAYS. Edited by 
 Justin H. McCarthy. 2 vols. 
 
 BLOOD ROYAL. By Grant Allen, i vol. 
 
 SUSY. By Bret Harte. i vol. 
 
 THE DOWNFALL. By E. Zola, i vol. 
 
 London : CHATTO & WINDUS, 214 Piccadilly, W.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 JOSEPHS coat' 'val strange' 'bob martin's little girl' etc. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 bonbon 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1893
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 LONDON
 
 ^^3 
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 '^ 
 
 ^ CHAPTEE I 
 
 ^iiTo be more royalist than the king is a 
 -^fr'common vice with a certain order of mind. 
 :Mr. Stanley Mallard fell into it when, after 
 '■ihirty years of unusually profitable broker's 
 $work on the Liverpool 'Change, he decided to 
 turn country gentleman. He was rich enough 
 -to be able to afford the gratification of his 
 Vmost expensive whims, and at the beginning 
 ^he was quite resolute to be more exclusively 
 ^and exquisitely ' county ' than the county 
 J people among whom he proposed to spend 
 J the remnant of his days. He looked out, to 
 ' begin with, for the oldest, the largest, and 
 the most picturesque country mansion to b3 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 had anywhere for love or money within the 
 limits of England. 
 
 He did not want a feudal castle, or he 
 would have had one. He wanted simply a 
 country gentleman's house of the most uuex- 
 ceptionable type and character, and he found 
 it in the neighbourhood of Hey don Hay, 
 which, as all men should know, stands in the 
 very heart of the English Midlands. The 
 Abbey, for so the house was called, w^as but 
 newly vacated by the Jessops, an ancient and 
 honourable household, brought to untimely 
 grief by injudicious speculation. It stood in 
 the midst of a well-w^ooded park, at a distance 
 of some three or four miles from its nearest 
 county neighbour, and from its roof was 
 visible the height of Beacon Hargate and the 
 more distant hills of Quarrymore. All about 
 it lay cultivated and prosperous farmlands, 
 with here and there a homestead, built of that 
 mellow-coloured red brick of which modern 
 builders seem to have lost the secret. 
 
 Mr. Stanley Mallard had undoubtedly
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 3 
 
 secured the noblest house of its class in the 
 county, but the place had one or two defects 
 which he proposed to himself to obliterate. 
 Its gardens, though beautiful and old- 
 fashioned, were small. Mr. Mallard deter- 
 mined to enlarge them, and to make them 
 the wonder of the neighbourhood. The 
 vineries were insignificant. They, too, were 
 to be enlarged . There were one or two other 
 comparative trifles of this nature, but the one 
 thing which most appealed to the heart of the 
 new owner was the desire to become a breeder 
 of game, and to be renowned for the excel- 
 lence of his coverts. For a man to be a 
 coimty gentleman it seemed in some sort 
 necessary to ]\Ir. Mallard to be in a kind of 
 superbly disdainful opposition to the common 
 people. Now the common people at this time 
 were in a state of some froth and uproar. 
 Mr. Mallard opined that they were, in the 
 main, better fed and housed and generally 
 more pampered than common people had a 
 right to be. He attributed the spread of 
 
 B 2
 
 4 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 Chartism to these undoubted facts, and his 
 soul abhorred a Whig as a true patriot soul 
 must always hate the false half-ally who 
 palters with the enemy. Mr. Stanley Mallard's 
 father had himself so far belonged to the 
 people as to wheel a fish-barrow in the East- 
 End of London, but it had pleased Providence 
 to make Mr. Mallard himself wealthier than 
 the ordinary run of wealthy men, and, stand- 
 ing on the pile of money he had gathered for 
 himself, he seemed to his own easily satisfied 
 fancy to be at a very lofty height indeed above 
 those from whose roots he had grown. 
 
 There was already a little shooting in the 
 neighbourhood of the Abbey, but it was in- 
 significant alike in quantity and quality, and 
 Mr. Mallard would never have bought the 
 place at all if he had not been aware of the 
 fact that a ninety-nine years' lease was on the 
 very eve of expiry. When he entered on 
 possession at the Abbey this lease was held by 
 Thomas Barton, a man of the solid English 
 home-loving type, who conceived himself
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 5 
 
 rooted to the soil. His grandfather, his great- 
 grandfather, and one ancestor even vet re- 
 moter had farmed the land before him. The 
 place had been known as Barton's Farm time 
 out of mind, and if it had ever owned an 
 earher name there was no local antiquarian 
 who had found a record of it. Farmer Barton 
 had one stalwart son, at this time four-and- 
 twenty years of age, but no other kith or kin. 
 The family somehow had died down to this, 
 but the young fellow was engaged to be 
 married, and the farmer lived in hope that he 
 should yet see new branches springing from 
 the old stock. Tom the younger was waiting 
 only for a renewal of the lease, and expected 
 that with tlie sort of unconscious certainty 
 with w^hich we all look for the rising of to- 
 morrow's sun. The Bartons were not wealthy 
 people, and, to tell the truth, the land they 
 valued so highly was mainly of a sour, thin 
 character, but it was their pride that the old 
 rent-book, handed down from sire to son for 
 nigh a hundred years, had been receipted
 
 6 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 punctually every quarter-day without a break. 
 They knew themselves to be excellent tenants, 
 they were paying, all things considered, a 
 fair value for the land, and, to their appre- 
 hension, the worst thing that could befall 
 would be a bit of a friendly tussle between the 
 agent and themselves with regard to an 
 increase of rental. Perhaps they might be 
 called on to pay a little more — perhaps not. 
 Father and son talked the matter over, 
 smoking their pipes by the kitchen fire of a 
 night-time, and were inclined to be hopeful. 
 
 It fell upon them with such a shock as if 
 Nature herself had gone to pieces when their 
 application for a renewal of the lease was 
 refused. Mr. Kelly, the Castle Barfield 
 lawyer, who had acted for the Jessops during 
 the elder Barton's lifetime, did his best to 
 soften the blow. He wrote saying what 
 admirable tenants they had been, and how 
 strongly he had recommended their claims to 
 the new proprietor. He expressed himself in 
 terms of genuine sorrow for the decision which
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 7 
 
 had been arrived at. His own powers of 
 protest were, of course, early exhausted. 
 There was nothing else for it. They must go. 
 
 They made inquiries as to tlie intended 
 disposition of the land, and could learn 
 nothing. One or other of them, father or son, 
 called almost daily at the agent's office for 
 news. There was no mcoming tenant. ]Mr. 
 Mallard had given no sign of any intention to 
 farm the land himself, and the one fact they 
 ehcited was that Mr. Kelly had received 
 information to the effect that his services in 
 regard to that one farm would no longer be 
 needed. 
 
 The younger Barton had hitherto supposed 
 himself to be a fairly good-natured and happy- 
 minded fellow, but he took fire at all this, and 
 went about in a state of constant flaming 
 wrath. He cried his grievance everywhere, 
 and denounced the new comer with perhaps 
 unnecessary violence. The popular sympathy 
 was entirely with him, and Mr. Stanley 
 Mallard found himself amono-st a sullen and
 
 8 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 discontented populace. In Heydon Hay 
 people refused to touch their hats to him as- 
 he rode or drove abroad, and in Castle Barfield 
 he was publicly groaned at in the High Street. 
 The thing that caught the popular imagina- 
 tion was that the elder Barton was manifestly 
 broken. He had been a hale, jolly fellow, 
 florid of complexion and broad of beam, and 
 had always worn something of a bullying and 
 dictatorial manner, through which shone a 
 certain native good humour which had kept 
 him popular. The ruddy complexion faded, 
 the broad shoulders began to stoop, the jolly 
 braggadocio voice fell to inarticulate murmurs. 
 The plain English is, the man's heart was 
 broken. He took no care for anything. He 
 had been spruce in attire after his fashion, and 
 now he grew to be a sloven. There were 
 farms in plenty to be had just then, and on 
 some of them he might have thriven. Either 
 the Earl of Barfield or Sir Ferdinand de 
 Blacquaire would willingly have strained a 
 point in his favour. The eccentric old noble^
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 9 
 
 man and the dandy young baronet expressed 
 sympathy, each m his own way, and the 
 broken man was grateful if not much reheved. 
 
 ' The man's a snob, sir,' said my Lord 
 Barfield. ' He fancies because he has money 
 that the jDCople about here are going to know 
 him. The people about here are not going to 
 know him. You're a good fellow, Barton, 
 and if I can do anything for you, you let me 
 know. The times are hard, deuced hard the 
 times are, and in business there's no such 
 thing as friendship ; but I'd sooner have 
 a good tenant at a low rental than a bad one 
 at a high one, and if you want a farm in the 
 old neighbourhood, see Jeans about it, and 
 ril take care that he deals well with you.' 
 
 ' I'm very much obliged to your lordship,' 
 said the old man, ' and I'll talk it over with 
 him. I hadn't looked to be turned out, my 
 lord, and — and ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes. Barton. Yes.' said his lordship, 
 shaking hands hurriedly, ' don't you fret. 
 Barton, don't you fret.'
 
 10 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 The old nobleman was very severe every- 
 where on Mr. Stanley Mallard, and of course 
 he carried the county with him. 
 
 Sir Ferdinand rode to Barton's farm ex- 
 pressly to bid the old man to be of cheer. 
 
 ' We hope we're not going to lose an old 
 and valued neighbour, Barton. We should 
 all be sorry if you decide to go away.' 
 
 He, too, proffered a farm to the" old man, 
 and mentioned terms which the other knew 
 to be broadly generous. But nothing could 
 greatly soothe the exile's sorrow. The emo- 
 tion was no doubt unreasoning, and there 
 are many people who will think it out of 
 proportion with its cause. It was none the 
 less real on that account, however, and when 
 it turned out that the Bartons were expelled 
 for no other reason than to make room for 
 fur and feather, the whole of that division of 
 the county was angrily excited. Mass meet- 
 ings were held, and were addressed by orators 
 from London and elsewhere. The news- 
 papers, less openly courageous then than
 
 TIME'S REVENGES ii 
 
 now, made allusions to the matter, and tlie 
 new county gentleman lived in perpetual hot 
 water. But Mr. Stanley Mallard had his 
 qualities as well as his defects, and amongst 
 them were courage and tenacity. He held 
 on his way, though in daily fear lest he should 
 have to barricade himself and stand a siege. 
 Captain Swing had not long ceased to do his 
 wicked work by night, and in every hour of 
 the twenty-four a horse stood ready saddled 
 in the Abbey stables, and a groom was booted 
 and spurred and fit to ride for yeomanry aid 
 at any moment. All this excitement calmed 
 down in a while, and events took an ordinary 
 course again. Mr. Mallard found himself 
 shunned alike by the county people and the 
 vulgar, and would willingly have recalled his 
 edict if he had not known that the fact of 
 his having done so would be immediately 
 shouted from the housetops. 
 
 Old Barton withered perceptibly, and the 
 week before the farm was vacated he died. 
 His funeral was widely attended, and there
 
 12 TIME-'S REVENGES 
 
 was a huge crowd at the sale of fanning 
 stock, implements, and household effects three 
 days later. There was some noisy horse-play 
 at this latter function, and threats were pretty 
 freely vented against Mr. Mallard, who had 
 prudently found business in London. Tom 
 Barton, now kinless, and, for the time being, 
 homeless, said nothing, but his heart burned 
 like a live coal within him. Many a dark 
 thought of revenge crossed his mind, but he 
 put the temptation steadily av/ay from him, 
 and from the hour of his father's death, at 
 least, consumed his own smoke privately. 
 
 The crowd had all dispersed, and only 
 Tom and the Bariield lawyer were left 
 behind. 
 
 ' I must ask you for the key, Barton,' said 
 Mr. Kelly, ' It's my duty to hand that over 
 to Mr. Mallard, and then, thank Heaven, 
 I shall have done with this business. I haven't 
 often had a more unpleasant task thrust upon 
 me.' 
 
 That was true enough, and Mr. Mallard's
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 13 
 
 unwilling agent had run some risk earlier in 
 the day of making acquaintance with the 
 horse-pond, and only owed his safety to Tom's 
 intervention. 
 
 'No fault of yours, Mr. Kelly,' said 
 Barton, gloomily. ' You did your best, I 
 know. There's the key, sir.' He surrendered 
 it as he spoke. 
 
 The lawyer locked the front door of the 
 house, after seeing that all was fast within, 
 and offered the ejected tenant a lift as far as 
 the village. 
 
 'No, thank you,' Tom responded. 'I'll 
 walk. I won't trouble you to wait for me, 
 Mr. Kelly.' 
 
 The lawyer, accepting this as a dismissal, 
 shook hands, unhitched his horse from the 
 gate, climbed into the trap, and drove away, 
 leaving young Barton alone in the deserted 
 yard. The young man filled and lit his pipe, 
 and, sitting down on the woodwork of an old 
 grindstone, ticketed ' Lot 204,' which some 
 purchaser had as yet delayed to carry away.
 
 14 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 he smoked gloomily, staring at tlie house he 
 was born in. 
 
 Heydon Hay was a quiet place, and its 
 people were unused to travel. From the 
 hour when he was born, no other roof- tree 
 than that of the old farm-place had ever 
 sheltered the young man's slumber. He had 
 never known how he had loved the place 
 until now he was forced to part from it. His 
 heart yearned over the very bricks and 
 mortar, and in spite of himself his eyes grew 
 dim. The closed shutters in the spring 
 twilight gave the place a homeless look. It 
 was so desolate and cold to the eye that it 
 might well have sheltered no living creature 
 for a year. There was a feehng of death 
 about it, too, a sense at once solemn and 
 eerie. The house he was born in, and had 
 lived in till that day, half-frightened him. In 
 it solitude and homelessness stood embodied. 
 
 The yard gate creaked a little on its 
 hinges, but the young man was so deep sunk 
 in his own bitter and mournful thoughts that
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 15 
 
 he heard no sound. A footstep came rustling 
 through the disordered htter of straw, but he 
 took no heed of that either. It was not till a 
 hand was gently laid upon his shoulder, and 
 a soft feminine voice addressed him, that he 
 turned. 
 
 ' Tom, dear,' said the voice. 
 
 A very pretty face was bending over him. 
 It was paler than it should have been, and 
 the eyes showed traces of recent tears, but 
 they looked altogether courageous and tender 
 and trustworthy. 
 
 ' My darling,' said Tom, rising from his 
 seat, and setting his pipe aside to take her by 
 both hands, ' what brings you here ? ' 
 
 ' I met Mr. Kelly in the lane,' she an- 
 swered, ' and he told me you were here. I 
 was coming up to look for you. I've felt that 
 sorry, Tom, I can't tell you.' 
 
 ' I know you have,' he answered, putting 
 his arms round her and drawing her to his 
 breast. 
 
 A tear or two ran down his own cheeks.
 
 i6 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 but he brushed them away with his hand 
 in a hasty shame. 
 
 ' I've been thinking about the old dad, 
 my dear,' he said, in apology for his own 
 disturbance. ' I've been thinking what he 
 must have felt like this last half-year and 
 more.' 
 
 'I know, Tom, I know,' she answered 
 him, drawing down his face to kiss him. 
 ' It's harder on old people than it is on young 
 ones.' 
 
 She made no pretence of coyness or 
 reserve, for she knew that this was not the 
 hour for either, and she was a true woman 
 from head to feet. Tom had begged for a 
 kiss in vain many a time during their court- 
 ship, but now she caressed him unbidden. 
 The touch of her hands and lips upon his 
 cheek warmed his cold and desolate heart a 
 little, but softened it at the same time, so that 
 he felt afraid for his manhood. 
 
 ' My darling,' he said, speaking with a 
 gulp or two, ' I felt that shaken and wretched
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 17 
 
 afore you came, and now you're that kind 
 and sweet I could find it in my heart to cry 
 like a great baby. I shan't do that, though,* 
 he added, with a quaint doggedness. ' You 
 see if I do.' He took up his pipe from the 
 side of the grindstone and reseated himself, 
 smoking with a quiet fury, and gradually 
 reducing his emotions to order. The girl 
 patted his shoulder from time to time, until 
 he took possession of her hand and held it in 
 both his own. ' You wouldn't have thought,' 
 he said, ' that the old place ever could have 
 looked that lonesome, would you? It don't 
 look as if there'd ever been a birth or a death 
 inside it.' 
 
 'It does look very lonesome,' the girl 
 assented. ' Very lonesome.' Her voice sank 
 to a plaintive tone, and her eye travelled over 
 the drearily shuttered windows, which had 
 taken a suddenly sightless aspect to her fancy. 
 The famihar face of the old house looked 
 dead. ' But Tom, dear,' she began in a 
 brisker tone, ' it's no use sitting here and 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 i8 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 grieving. Don't think that I don't like you 
 to have your natural feeling ; I shouldn't care 
 for a man at all if he didn't feel such a thing 
 as this. This isn't the time to talk about it ; 
 but we shall be happy yet, Tom. There's all 
 the world before us, and you're young, my 
 dear.' 
 
 ' I don't look to feel always like this,' he 
 answered, ' but I hadn't the heart to leave the 
 place with the rest. It seemed to behove me, 
 somehow, to sit down and say good-bye to it. 
 My great-grandfather was born here in the 
 old blue bedroom ; so was grandad. I can 
 just remember him. So was dad. So was I. 
 It's a bit of a hard pull to leave the place, 
 there's no disguising that, Mary ; it's a hardish 
 bit of a pull to go.' 
 
 She put her free hand round his neck and 
 smoothed his shaven cheek with it, but made 
 no verbal answer. 
 
 In a little while he rose of his own accord, 
 knocked the ashes from his pipe, and put it in 
 his pocket.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 19 
 
 'My dear,' he said, turning on his com- 
 panion with a braver air than he had vet 
 worn, ' you've shown me more of your heart 
 this last week than I ever saw before. If it 
 hadn't been for you, Mary, I should have 
 done something to be sorry for. You've held 
 me up and kept me straight. I'll never 
 forget it. If ever I should be tempted to be 
 a careless husband I'll think of what you've 
 been to me this last week, and, if I've got a 
 man's heart in me ' 
 
 ' Don't talk so, Tom,' she interrupted him. 
 There's nobody in the world for me but you, 
 and as for your ever being anything but a 
 good man, Tve no more doubt about that 
 than I have about our being alive this 
 minute.' 
 
 'I am sure of your love, my dear,' he 
 answered gravely and tenderly, ' and if any- 
 thing could make a man of me, that ought.* 
 
 He drew her to his breast again, and she 
 laid her head upon his shoulder in silence for 
 a while. Then he kissed her on the fore- 
 
 o2
 
 20 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 head with extreme solemnity, drew her arm 
 through his, and walked with her to the 
 gate. 
 
 They paused and turned there to take 
 a last look at the house, and then went 
 silently on together through the deepening 
 twihght of the lanes. 
 
 They had not travelled far when the 
 sound of hoof-beats became audible, and in 
 another minute Sir Ferdinand de Blacquaire 
 reined in beside them. He was well mounted, 
 and looked a gallant figure. 
 
 ' That you. Barton ? ' he asked, fixing an 
 eyeglass to be sure of his man. 
 
 'Yes, Sir Ferdinand,' Tom answered. 'It's 
 me.' 
 
 'I was just at this minute thinking of 
 you,' said the magnate. He was not quite so 
 refined and perfect a dandy as he had been 
 in the days before his marriage, but the 
 aristocratic tone he had learned at Cambridge 
 was ineradicable, and would remain with him 
 to the end of his days. In these level times
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 21 
 
 everybody — leaving out the purely rustic 
 populations — talks pretty much hke every- 
 body else, and it is difficult, by mere accent, 
 to distinguish a duke from a tailor. But iu 
 the days of which I write gentlemen had an 
 accent of their own. Some of us remember 
 the throaty drawl of Cambridge at that epoch. 
 Sir Ferdinand had it in perfection, and the 
 county folk thereabouts respected it and 
 accepted it as the hall-mark of the Enghsh 
 gentleman of modern time. 
 
 ' I can't,' said Sir Ferdinand, ' undertake 
 to keep the place open much longer, Barton. 
 It carries two hundred and fifty pounds a year 
 and a liouse with it, and coals. Altogether 
 it's worth a good three hundred. I wouldn't 
 trouble you to answer me before, but the 
 whole affair's going to wrack and ruin, and I 
 must have a baihff* installed within a week. 
 Now, can I ask you to say yes or no at once, 
 like a good fellow ? ' 
 
 ' I've been thinking a good deal about your 
 offer. Sir Ferdinand,' the young man answered,
 
 22 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' and I don't think I'm likely to find anything 
 else as good, not to talk of better.' 
 
 ' Then,' said the baronet, ' I presume that 
 you accept.' 
 
 ' I'm very much obliged to you for the 
 offer. Sir Ferdinand,' Tom answered, ' and I 
 shall accept the place gratefully.' 
 
 ' That's well,' returned the baronet, in his 
 fashionable drawl. ' You understand the con- 
 ditions, Barton. You take the place for a 
 year, and the bargain is renewable annually 
 or may be dissolved annually at the will of 
 either of us. You enter on your duties at 
 once, and the salary is payable quarterly.' 
 
 ' Yes, Sir Ferdinand,' Tom answered. ' I 
 shall be ready to begin work to-morrow, and 
 I hope to be able to give you satisfaction.' 
 
 *I think you're the man for the place, 
 Barton,' the baronet responded, ' and I've no 
 doubt we shall get on together very nicely.' 
 
 Tom and his sweetheart had moved apart 
 a little at Sir Ferdinand's arrival on the scene, 
 but now that he had ridden a yard or two in
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 23 
 
 advance, and was talking over his shoulder, 
 Mary had dared to take Tom's arm again. She 
 hugged it a httle in approval of his acceptance 
 of Sir Ferdinand's offer, and the baronet said : 
 
 'If you'll follow me, Barton, up to the 
 Hall, I'll have a paper ready for you to sign 
 by the time you get there.' 
 
 ' Very weU, Sir Ferdinand,' Tom answered. 
 
 Almost at the same instant Lady de Blac- 
 quaire swept up in her little pony carriage, 
 and arrested it beside the lovers. 
 
 'Mary,' she said, somewhat tartly, 'what 
 are you doing here ? ' 
 
 * K your ladyship will excuse me,' said 
 Tom, blushing in the dark, 'I've just taken 
 the place of bailiff under Sir Ferdinand, and 
 Mary and me have fixed to get married in 
 about half a year from now.' 
 
 ' Indeed,' said her ladyship ; ' I hope 
 you'U make her a good husband.' 
 
 ' I'll try,' said Tom, simply. 
 
 ' I shaU lose the best maid I ever had/ 
 said her ladyship, and so drove on.
 
 24 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 CHAPTEE II, 
 
 Mr. Stanley Mallard, to the bitter dis- 
 contentment of the neighbouring farmers, 
 took measures at once to stock the land of 
 which he had dispossessed the Bartons. He 
 might have bought as many pheasants as he 
 chose, and he might even for a while have 
 allowed the ground game to run wild, and 
 multiply at its own will, without exciting 
 anger. But the new proprietor was for 
 having everything at once, and he imported 
 live hares and rabbits by the hundred, and 
 had them turned loose upon his grounds. 
 The young crops in the neighbourhood were 
 devastated, and Mr. Stanley Mallard became 
 the best hated man in that region of Her 
 Majesty's dominions. He was but little seen 
 for some time after the eviction of the Bar-
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 25 
 
 tons, his place at the Abbey being taken 
 by his son, ^vho was captain in a marching 
 regiment. 
 
 This young gentleman had many qualities 
 which would, under more favourable circum- 
 stances, have made him popular. He was 
 good-looking, and had a genial temperament, 
 and if he had been left entirely to make his 
 own way would have done well enough. He 
 had, however, to endure all the obloquy which 
 attached to his father's acts, and encoun- 
 tered an ill-will so evident and outspoken 
 that it might easily have soured a better 
 temper than his own. His geniahty was no 
 more than the product of health and high 
 spirits. The high spirits were greatly damped 
 by the purposed insolence of his poorer 
 neighbours, and the icy coldness of those 
 whose sympathy he thought he had a right to 
 ask for. They fell at last to zero, and then the 
 unfortunate young gentleman took to moping 
 at home, oppressed with [an unconquerable 
 sense of failure and disappointment, He
 
 26 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 wrote one or two letters to his father, urging 
 upon him the advisabihty of putting the 
 estate once more upon the market ; but the 
 elder man returned no answer to these appeals. 
 Captain Mallard found his sojourn at the 
 Abbey duller and more exasperating day by 
 day, and was meditating flight when he re- 
 ceived the first call with which the Abbey 
 had been honoured by any person of county 
 consequence since the incoming of the new 
 tenant. 
 
 The visitor was Parson Heathcote, Lady 
 Barfield's cousin, an old gentleman renowned 
 throughout the district on three or four sepa- 
 rate grounds. First of all, his family position 
 lent him dignity, and he was a favourite in 
 high places all England over. Next he was 
 respected as an art critic, and as the owner 
 of the finest private gallery within local know- 
 ledge. He was a familiar figure in the London 
 studios during the season, and was an inde- 
 fatigable buyer of the works of young men of 
 real but unrecognised talent. The parson's
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 27 
 
 proteges were always coming to the fore, and 
 there was probably no gallery in England of 
 an equal money value which had been 
 gathered at so little cost. Parson Heathcote's 
 best claim to fame, however, lay in the un- 
 compromising plainness of his speech. He 
 had a manner of perfect courthness, at once 
 suave and commanding, which helped him to 
 say things which most people confined them- 
 selves to thinking. Captain Mallard had an 
 experience of his powers in that direction 
 which he was not likely to forget. 
 
 ' I am charmed to meet you, Mr. Heath- 
 cote/ said the captain. ' Your name, of 
 course, has always been familiar to me.' 
 
 The young gentleman meant to be agree- 
 able, and his manner was cordial and ingra- 
 tiatory. Parson Heathcote had no such 
 intention, and he responded to the young 
 gentleman's greeting by a mere questioning 
 lift of the eyebrows and a bend of the head. 
 
 ^ I regret,' said the captain, ' that my 
 father is not at home to receive you. He has
 
 28 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 business in London, and is not likely to be 
 down here before the end of the season.' 
 
 Parson Heathcote raised his eyebrows 
 anew, but still said nothing. The captain 
 besought him to be seated, and proffered 
 refreshment. Would Mr. Heathcote stay to 
 luncheon ? It would be served in an hour in 
 the ordinary course, but should be hastened 
 or delayed at his goodwill and pleasure. 
 
 ' Thank you, no,' said the parson. ' In 
 point of fact. Captain Mallard, I am here on 
 rather a disagreeable errand. I am sorry that 
 your father is not here, because my business 
 is really with him. You, I dare say, will be 
 good enough to represent to him something of 
 what I have to say.' 
 
 'I was not aware, sir,' said Captain 
 Mallard, 'that my father had yet had the 
 pleasure of meeting you.' 
 
 * Nor has he,' Mr. Heathcote answered ; 
 * but you see. Captain Mallard, that I have a 
 flock here which is accustomed to look to me 
 for advice and assistance in respect to many
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 29 
 
 matters wliicli are not usually thought to be 
 within the cleric's province.' He was polished, 
 bland, suave to the uttermost, and, leaning 
 back in his chair with one leg thrown over 
 the other, looked almost insolently at home. 
 He toyed with liis gold-rimmed double eye- 
 glass, and now and then stuck it across his 
 eagle beak to examine his host. 
 
 'I can quite understand that, sii',' said 
 Captain Mallard, foreboding what was coming. 
 
 ' Quite so,' said Mr. Heathcote. ' Quite 
 so. Well, Captain Mallard, the case is this. 
 My sheep are getting into a desperately 
 entangled rout, and I must appeal to your 
 father to aid me in returning them to some- 
 thing like order.' 
 
 ' To my father, sir ? ' 
 
 'It is your father. Captain Mallard, who 
 has unconsciously disturbed my little regi- 
 ment. I have unwiUingly been compelled to 
 listen to much gross language in my time. It 
 has been one of my duties as a clergyman and 
 a man of taste to do what I could to eradicate
 
 30 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 the habit of profane swearing. Since your 
 father's arrival, Captain Mallard, I have found 
 my best efforts unavailing/ 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, sir,' said Captain 
 Mallard, ' but I really don't quite understand 
 you.' 
 
 ' Let me try to make myself intelligible,' 
 said Mr. Heathcote. 'Let me ask you, to 
 begin with, if you have conversed with any 
 of the farmers whose land abuts on what 
 used to be known as Barton's Farm? ' 
 
 ' I have not, sir,' the captain answered, 
 curtly. 
 
 ' Exactly,' said the clergyman. ' Exactly. 
 Had you done so I might have been saved the 
 necessity of saying some unpleasant things. 
 These poor fellows report to me that for acres 
 all round the Barton Farm their crops are 
 ruined. Your father, so they inform me, has 
 imported ground game in great quantities. 
 Agricultural business is, and has been for the 
 last few years, as bad as can well be fancied, 
 and I think you will confess, Captain Mallard,
 
 IIME'S REVENGES 31 
 
 that one man in search of a week or two of 
 amusement in the year stretches his privileges 
 a Httle too far if he bring ruin on half a score 
 of families.' 
 
 « I think, sir/ said Captain Mallard, who 
 by this time had grown as stiff as he had been 
 urbane at the beginning of the interview, ' I 
 think, sir, that your informants have pro- 
 bably exaggerated the damage done by a few 
 hares and rabbits.' 
 
 ' I myself thought that not unHkely,' ^Ir. 
 Heathcote responded, ' until I rode over a 
 portion of the ground this morning. You 
 can look into the matter for yourself, and if 
 you will do that the object of my visit will be 
 achieved.' 
 
 ' Had we been met here in a proper spirit, 
 sir,' cried the captain, somewhat loudly, ' had 
 we encountered anything but the most deter- 
 mined and the most groundless enmity ' 
 
 ' Pardon me,' said the clergyman, bland 
 and cool as ever, ' you have not acquainted 
 yourself with the facts. There are two sides
 
 32 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 to every case, and in the view of the good 
 people hereabouts the enmity is not ground- 
 less. Had any one of the oldest, the most 
 popular, the best-behaved landowners in the 
 county wantonly dismissed an excellent old 
 tenant and made his farm into a desert, he 
 would have been execrated by his neighbours 
 A stranger doing this, and expecting to be 
 received with open arms, presents an interest- 
 ing and curious spectacle.' 
 
 Captain Mallard, at the clergyman's inter- 
 ruption, had walked smartly to the window. 
 He stood there, drumming one foot angrily on 
 the carpet, and when Mr. Heathcote paused, 
 he ^turned with a look and voice of offended 
 dignity. 
 
 ' Your position, Mr. Heathcote,' he said, 
 * is universally acknowledged to afford you 
 certain privileges. You speak of privilege, 
 sir. / speak of privilege. It is perhaps as 
 possible for a clergyman to exceed the due 
 line as for a landowner.' 
 
 Mr. Heathcote was not only unruffled, but
 
 TIMES RETENGES 33 
 
 looked as if he were incapable of being dis- 
 turbed in any way. He toyed with his gold 
 eyeglass, and waved it hither and thither in a 
 way which was partly conciliatory, but partly, 
 as the young officer thought, at least, dis- 
 dainful. 
 
 ' Captain Mallard,' he replied, ' I disclaim 
 all desire to give oflence. I beg you to 
 accept my disclaimer. My only object in this 
 matter is to heal an unhappy breach of 
 temper which has probably been brought 
 about by an act of thoughtlessness which 
 may be remedied at any moment.' 
 
 ' My father is the responsible person 
 here,' the captain answered, in no wise mol- 
 lified, ' and I think I can hardly do better 
 than refer you to him.' 
 
 The tone was decisive, and the speech was 
 intended to close the interview. 
 
 ' Permit me. Captain Mallard,' said Mr. 
 Heathcote, ' to assure you that the position is 
 one of some seriousness. I am sure that 
 when you are once acquainted with the facts 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 your view of the situation will change. A 
 very estimable old man, whom I knew in- 
 timately for forty years, has died literally of 
 a broken heart. He was dispossessed — I will 
 not say wantonly, but thoughtlessly — by a 
 stranger whom he had never injured. I am 
 not offering reproaches. Captain Mallard, I 
 am stating facts. Your father has made a 
 grave mistake. A good man, discovering an 
 error so vital, will do his best to retrace his 
 steps. Consider, sir, if you had been rooted 
 to the soil ' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, sir,' cried the captain. 
 ' I decline to listen to an indictment of my 
 father in his absence, and I am not in a 
 position either to defend him or to sit in 
 judgment on him.' 
 
 ' I am sure, Captain Mallard,' returned 
 Heathcote, rising, ' that you will do what you 
 can to put away any cause of irritation. If 
 you and I should quarrel about this matter, 
 I should have done great harm. I will not 
 be a party to mischief if I can help it ; but
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 35 
 
 can't we possibly talk about this matter with- 
 out anger on either side ? My influence, I 
 assure you, sir, is exerted on the side of 
 peace. If you choose to exert yourself 
 in the same cause everything may yet be 
 well.' 
 
 ' I cannot hear my father's conduct 
 arraigned,' declared Mallard. ' If he can learn 
 that he has done damage unwittingly to any 
 interest he will be willing to compensate. You 
 wiU excuse me if I add that I can carry this 
 discussion no further.' 
 
 ' May I ask this one thing of you, Captain 
 Mallard ? ' the clergyman asked. ' May I ask 
 that you wiU represent to your father the 
 fact s of the case P I came here with an un- 
 gracious and difficult task, and I daresay I 
 have performed it awkwardly. But will you, 
 forgetting any irritation I may have caused, 
 look into the matter for yourself ? I assure 
 you it is worth investigation. And will you 
 report it to your father ? ' 
 
 ' I undertake that, sir,' Mallard answered, 
 
 D 2
 
 36 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 and taere, practically, was an end of the 
 interview. 
 
 The parson mounted his cob at the door, 
 and rode awa}^ fairly satisfied with himself 
 and his own proceedings, as he had a knack of 
 being. Captain Mallard remained behind, 
 less pleased with the turn the interview had 
 taken. On the whole he was inclined to think 
 that he had acquitted himself well, but he 
 admitted in his secret heart that the original 
 position was not easily defensible. 
 
 ' The fact is,' he said to himself, as he 
 marched soldier-like up and down the 
 smoking room, ' the fact is that the governor 
 has made a dreadful blunder. As far as our 
 name is known it's hated — like poison. It 
 was a mistake in tactics. We ought to have 
 conciliated everybody. As it is the governor 
 comes swooping down like the wolf on the 
 fold, and has spoiled not only his own chances 
 of success, but mine. The people here won't 
 look at us, and the worst of it is that the 
 people here go everywhere. I must confess
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 37 
 
 the governor's a blunderer. The farmers 
 don't matter so much ; but to have made 
 friends with old Barfield would have carried 
 us anywhere. De Blacquaire's a good man. 
 too. It's no use to sell this place and start 
 elsewhere, for we've been talked about from 
 John o' Groat's to Land's End. The only 
 thing is to live it down. Better begin by con- 
 ciliating the farmers.' 
 
 A servant broke in on his meditations 
 with the announcement tliat luncheon was 
 served, and he pursued his reflections over 
 the meal. The result was that he ordered a 
 horse to be saddled, and rode away in search 
 of the nearest farmer. He worked himself 
 resolutely back to good humour, and by the 
 time he had found his man he felt thoroughly 
 genial and well-intentioned. 
 
 ' Look here, Shorthouse,' the captain 
 began, ' I've just had a visit from Parson 
 Heathcote. He tells me that the hares and 
 rabbits have been doino; a lot of mischief to 
 your crops.'
 
 38 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' Does he, by Jingo ? ' retorted the farmer, 
 bull-necked and bull- dog visaged. 
 
 ' I'm going to put a stop to that.' 
 
 ' Time you did,' said Shorthouse. 
 
 ' I'll have a rabbit-proof fence run round 
 the Barton farm as soon as possible, and, in 
 the meantime, if you've any claim for com- 
 pensation, send it in. I'll undertake that my 
 father shall consider it.' 
 
 ' That's all right,' the farmer answered 
 sulkily. He was not going to be conciliated 
 all in a minute. ' You've got yourself pretty 
 well disliked, you have ; and don't you think 
 as it's the hares and the rabbits as has done it 
 all, because it ain't.' 
 
 ^I am afraid there have been mistakes, 
 Shorthouse,' the officer answered, doing his 
 best to be amiable, ' but let us hope that 
 it's not too late to mend. We've no desire, 
 you know, to live at enmity with our neigh- 
 bours.' 
 
 ' It's a sight too late to mend,' Shorthouse 
 answered. ' Look here, sir, I've been waiting
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 39 
 
 for a cliance to give thee a bit o' my mind, 
 and now have at you. A passel 0' jumped- 
 up nobodies, comin' from the Lord knows 
 whither, chivvyin' and bullyin' a country-side 
 as my Lord Barfield himself 'd never ha' dared 
 to do. Theer, theer, I've said my say. Ride 
 along, young man.' 
 
 Captain Mallard felt that he had a right to 
 be angry. He had come out with the best 
 intentions in the world, having swallowed the 
 bitter pill the parson had presented to him, 
 and digested it, as he hoped, with profit. 
 And here was all set at naught by this insolent 
 clown, who made nothing of his surrender, 
 and refused his proffered amity. 
 
 ' I came here,' he said, ' to make you a 
 free offer of compensation. I withdraw that 
 offer, and I wish you good day.' 
 
 ' Compensate ! ' the farmer bawled after 
 him. ' Goo an' compensate young Tom 
 Barton. That old fox of a father 0' yours 
 murdered his'n. Goo and try your compen- 
 sation on him ! '
 
 40 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 The captain rode on gloomily. His mission 
 had had poorish results so far. The head and 
 front of the family offending Avas obviously 
 the uprooting of the Bartons. He declined, 
 and from his own point of view naturally 
 declined, to lend a moment's credence to the 
 idea that old Barton's death had been caused 
 or even hastened by his father's refusal to 
 renew the lease. The sentiment which could 
 make such a thing possible was outside 
 Captain Mallard's scheme of things. That the 
 man should have been annoyed was con- 
 ceivable. That he should have been killed 
 was not merely incredible but ridiculous. 
 Yet, all the same, this young Barton was at 
 the root of things, and before resigning him- 
 self altogether to despair, it might be well to 
 make one effort towards conciliating him. 
 Thinking thus, he lifted his eyes, and saw tlie 
 man with whom his thoughts were busy a 
 hundred yards away, and approaching him on 
 horseback. He took a swift resolution, and 
 rode forward, hailing the oncomer.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 41 
 
 * Mr. Barton ! a word with you ! ' 
 
 Tom looked up at tlie call, but the sun was 
 in his eyes, and for the moment he did not 
 recognise the man who hailed him. He 
 quickened his horse's pace involuntarily, how- 
 ever, but almost in the act of doing so drew 
 rein, and sat stock still. 
 
 'I want a word with you, Barton,* said 
 Captain Mallard. ' A serious word.' 
 
 ' You'd best not have it,' Tom answered. 
 'I've got no words to waste on you or yours.'
 
 42 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Captain Mallard went home mightily in- 
 censed against the whole population of Heydon 
 Hay. He was all the more angry because it 
 had cost him a very real effort to apologise 
 and to promise amendment. He had certainly 
 been over-sanguine in supposing that the local 
 hatred of his father could be soothed into 
 friendship by a few pleasant words. And yet 
 his honest and well-meant attempt merited 
 more success than it had encountered. He 
 was in no position to do justice to Barton's 
 feelings, and contemptuously dismissed him 
 from his mind as an ill-conditioned cub of a 
 fellow with whom it was not worth while to 
 concern himself. On Barton's side the mere 
 fact that Mallard had presumed to address 
 him at all seemed to convey a callous and
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 43 
 
 brutal insult. The lad mourned his father 
 profoundly, and every day, as he rode about 
 the country-side in pursuance of his various 
 duties, the sight of the old house standing 
 empty and desolate brought a sense of grief 
 and desperation to his heart. The fields it 
 had been his pride and delight to till were 
 already beginning to present an aspect which 
 was grievous to a practical farmer's eye. 
 
 After an undisturbed possession of so many 
 years the land had seemed after a fashion 
 to belong to his father, and he had looked 
 forward to the lease as his assured inheritance. 
 The loss of the farm was only half his grief, 
 and when all was said about it, by far the 
 least important to him. Under any circum- 
 stances he would have mourned his father's 
 death, but if the old man had been carried 
 away by any common illness, or had come to 
 his end by any common disaster, he would 
 have felt his loss less passionately. The act 
 of tyranny which had killed him looked to the 
 survivor's eyes altogether purposeless and
 
 44 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 wanton. His blood boiled when he thought 
 of it, and sometimes for an hour together he 
 would brood on it with blazing eyes and 
 clenched teeth, until he felt himself to be 
 growing dangerous. 
 
 Nobody could charm him out of these 
 silent rages but Mary Duffield ; but they 
 always yielded at a word from her. In re- 
 spect to income, Tom was as well off as he 
 had ever expected to be. He and Sir Fer- 
 dinand got on splendidly together. The new 
 bailiff knew his work thoroughly, and went 
 about it with an excellent, unfailing ardour. 
 Sir Ferdinand was an appreciative employer, 
 and the position had a very promising look 
 of permanency. The wedding-day was fixed, 
 the house to which the bride was to come 
 home was furnished, and if the intending 
 bridegroom had not been so constantly re- 
 minded of the wrong which had been done 
 him, he would have been on the high road 
 to complete happiness. 
 
 There was at least one professional poa-
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 45 
 
 cher in Heydon Hay. who was known to the 
 local gamekeepers. Those functionaries had 
 had a longing eye on him for years, but 
 had never yet caught him flagrante delicto^ 
 or traced game from his hand to any market. 
 K they had had the sympathy of the great 
 non-poaching body, they might have proved 
 scores of cases against him to the hilt. But 
 in the rural mind just then there was a 
 general sense that any man who chose to 
 make war against constituted authority in 
 that particular fashion fulfilled, in a way, a 
 sort of pubhc duty. 
 
 The people, in point of fact, were not 
 in sympathy with the game laws, however 
 leniently they might be construed by the 
 best of landlords. Then there were half-a- 
 dozen amateur young men who did a little 
 poaching with extreme discretion, and at 
 intervals, more for the fun and danger of the 
 thing than for any meagre profit it might 
 bring them, and their existence in the body 
 politic helped to float the public sense of
 
 46 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 antipathy to the law. Most people of the 
 humbler sort thought poaching a perfectly 
 fair game. The law was on the landlord's 
 side, but the natural rights of the case were 
 against him. A successful breach of the 
 law set a feather in the cap of any daring 
 youngster. 
 
 Tom, in his new position, had to set his 
 face resolutely against all this, and did it, as 
 he did the rest of his duties, thoroughly. 
 As a mere lad he had himself been tempted 
 into one or two after-dark expeditions, and 
 was, therefore, perfectly well acquainted with 
 the men engaged in them. He made it his 
 business to call on them one by one, and to 
 warn them from their pursuit. 
 
 ' You see,' said Tom, ' it wouldn't be fair 
 on me to make me give any of you chaps 
 away. I know the whole lot of you, and 
 all the tricks you're up to. Set a thief to 
 catch a thief. D'ye see? Now, you be 
 warned, and don't let me have any trouble 
 with you.'
 
 TIME'S RE VE AGES 47 
 
 Tom Barton's candour kept Sir Ferdi- 
 nand's birds from harm ; but the poaching 
 element rejoiced in the prospect of sport on 
 Mr. Stanley Mallard's overstocked preserves. 
 Game was so plentiful that the ^^iring of a 
 hare ceased to be an adventure worthy of 
 the name, until one of the amateur tribe 
 was caught red-handed by a keeper of Mal- 
 lard's, and was sent to jail for six weeks 
 from the Barfield Petty Sessions. The rest 
 laid their heads together, and concocted a 
 deed of open defiance, which led to serious 
 and even dreadful consequences. 
 
 Castle Barfield had at this time a popu- 
 lation of something like forty thousand, and 
 amongst the working classes there were rol- 
 licking youngsters by the score who would 
 have been willing to join in such an enter- 
 prise. A dozen or thereabouts were en- 
 listed, and on one lovely night in autumn, 
 when the harvest moon was at the full, they 
 assembled at an appointed place. Every 
 man had a gun, a powder-flask, a pocketful
 
 48 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 of sliot. an old newspaper for wadding, and 
 a handful of percussion caps. Each one was 
 further provided with a mask of black crape 
 with a pair of eyeholes cut in it. They 
 were sworn to defend themselves if attacked 
 by the gamekeepers, and their object was to 
 do as much damage to Mr. Stanley Mallard's 
 preserves as possible without view to their 
 own profit. The party numbered seventeen, 
 and Mr. Mallard employed a keeper, an un- 
 derkeeper, and a brace of human lurchers 
 rising respectively nineteen and twenty. The 
 marauders calculated, with some promise of 
 success, on being able to overawe this feeble 
 contingent, and entered on the business with 
 a light heart. They had walked in from 
 various points to their rendezvous, and 
 thence marched boldly along the lane until 
 they reached a five-barred gate, which led 
 directly to the Barton Farm. This they 
 climbed, and then, by their leader's orders, 
 extended themselves in a line at measured 
 intervals along the hedge. Then, at a given
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 49 
 
 signal, they advanced in line, potting right 
 and left at anything that rose. 
 
 The Hght looked clear as day ; but, as 
 anybody who has tried moonlight shooting 
 knows, this appearance is deceptive, and the 
 amount of noise was prodigiously in excess 
 of the execution done. The gamekeeper and 
 his brace of lurchers heard it, and hurried 
 to the spot. The underkeeper heard it, and 
 rose from his modest pint of small ale at the 
 King Wilham. Captain Mallard heard it as 
 he lounged about the garden with his after- 
 dinner cigar, and, summoning coachman, 
 groom, stable-helper, valet, and butler, ran in 
 the direction of the field from which the firing 
 came. Unluckily for himself, Tom Barton 
 heard it also, and was nearest of them all. 
 He was within a hundred yards when the first 
 shot was fired, and heard the noisy shouting 
 and laughter of the Barfield boys. The local 
 poachers gave no tongue, knowing that they 
 might be sworn to by their voices. Tom 
 raced down the lane, vaulted the gate, and so 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 for the first time since liis expulsion from 
 it set foot on the farm on which he was 
 born. He sent out a kisty ' Halloa, you 
 there ! ' 
 
 ' Halloa, you there ! ' one of the strangers 
 answered mockingly, supposing him to be 
 landed proprietor or keeper. 
 
 Tom knew the voice for a stranger's, and 
 suspected at once the nature and the purpose 
 of the raid. 
 
 'This won't do, men,' said Tom, ad- 
 vancing. 
 
 ' Keep thy distance,' said one, turning and 
 levelling his gun in Tom's direction. 
 
 ' Pooh, pooh ! ' said Tom, advancing. 
 ' Don't be a fool. Put that thing down.' 
 
 ' Keep thy distance,' said the man again. 
 ' Bist warned. Come no nigher.' 
 
 Tom pressed on, and the reckless black- 
 guard fired. The pellets went by harmlessly, 
 with an unpleasant, stinging sound. 
 
 ' I don't think anybody else is fool and 
 scoundrel enough for that,' said Barton.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 51 
 
 His blood was up, and lie walked reso- 
 lutely towards the man wlio had fired. The 
 man, with the whites of his eyes gleaming 
 oddly in the moonlight through his crape 
 mask, dropped his gun and waited. 
 
 ' Bodham,' said Tom, ' are you here ? 
 You here, Hargate ? You here, Jones ? ' 
 
 There was no answer to these various 
 queries, but the men drew gradually near 
 each other. 
 
 'You needn't take the trouble to brain 
 me, my friend,' said Tom, addressing the 
 man who had fired, ' but this won't do. If 
 there are any Heydon Hay men here, and 
 I suppose there are, they know me. I 
 mean no harm to any of you, but this won't 
 do.' 
 
 One of the Heydon Hay squadron had 
 whispered a Barfield man that this was Mr. 
 Barton, Sir Ferdinand's bailiff, a rare good 
 chap who meant no harm to anybody, and 
 the man whose father had been ejected from 
 the Barton Farm. 
 
 E 2 
 
 awWtRSITY OF ILUNOIS 
 LIBRARY
 
 52 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' Mr. Barton,' said the man thus primed, 
 speaking civilly enough, ' you're the last man 
 in the world as should want to stop us.' 
 
 ' It won't do, men,' said Tom, staunchly. 
 ' You'll only get yourselves into trouble.' 
 
 ' Shall we ? ' said a third. ' Here's for it, 
 then.' He banged at a hare which raced 
 across the field at that moment. The 
 frightened creature veered, and tacked hither 
 and thither amid a perfect fusillade of shots, 
 and finally escaped unhurt amid wild laughters 
 and whoopings. Suddenly someone cried, 
 ' 'Ware keepers ! ' and seven or eight men 
 were seen closing in about them at racing 
 pace on every side. The poachers, at a pre- 
 concerted signal, formed into a ring, shoulder 
 to shoulder, and faced the oncoming foe. Their 
 eyeballs gleamed white and threatening 
 through the masks of crape, and the advanc- 
 ing enemy seeing them thus massed together 
 fell into a walk, and even lagged a httle in 
 that. There was one exception. Captain 
 Mallard, armed with nothing but a riding
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 53 
 
 whip, marched erect and indignant towards 
 the ring. 
 
 'Put down your guns,' he cried. ' There 
 is plenty of help behind.' 
 
 ' Better come no further,' cried one of the 
 men in the circle, levelling his gun. ' Stop 
 wheer you be if you set a value o' your hfe.' 
 
 As it happened, the threatening gun was 
 empty. The man behind it knew that, but 
 Captain Mallard did not. That made no 
 difference. He was brave even to rashness, 
 and gave evidence of that fact on many 
 historical fields in later years, and with right 
 on his side he was ready to face anything. 
 He walked straight on, and suddenly caught 
 sight of Barton, recognising him clearly in the 
 broad moonlight. He made a sudden dart at 
 him, and seized him by the collar before Tom 
 could raise a hand in resistance. 
 
 ' You're here, are you ? ' he exclaimed, 
 
 driving his knuckles into Barton's throat. He 
 
 was a stalwart fellow, and his excitement 
 
 endino' him unusual strength, he forced Tom
 
 54 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 for a moment almost to his knees. There was 
 no chance for explanation, and Tom, thus 
 unreasoningly assailed, was scarcely in the 
 humour for it had it been possible. He re- 
 covered himself after the first surprise, and 
 grappled with his adversary. He was at a 
 serious disadvantage to begin with, but was 
 both solider in mould and wirier than Mallard, 
 and in a little while matters were more than 
 equalised. He was free, and had his hands 
 in posture to defend himself. The young 
 officer went madly at him, and was met b}^ a 
 well-directed blow which sent him staggering 
 backwards. He came on again with a rush, 
 and got once more to close quarters, but Tom 
 was an expert wrestler, and threw him. He 
 fell heavily, and at that instant a shot rang 
 out and a heavy charge struck him in the 
 hip. 
 
 ' I'm shot ! ' screamed Mallard. He strove 
 in vain to rise, and shook a threatening fist at 
 Barton. ' You shall hang for this, you black- 
 guard murderer.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 55 
 
 Who fired the shot, whether it was dis- 
 charged in mere nervousness, by accident, 
 or in any scuffle between gamekeeper and 
 poacher, was never known, but the cry of 
 pain and the threat were enough for the silly 
 rabble whose folly had brought about the 
 disaster. They fled in all directions, and the 
 keepers and their assistants pursued in vain. 
 Two well-intentioned men, the gfroom and 
 coachman, knowing no more than that their 
 master's voice had denounced Barton, seized 
 on him and held him. 
 
 ' You needn't trouble, my men,' said he, 
 suddenly sobered by the catastrophe. ' I'm 
 no more answerable for this than you are. 
 I've nothing to run away from, and your best 
 business is to help your master.' 
 
 They held him still, but, calling lustily for 
 help, brought certain stragglers from the 
 chase. Others, who heard the firing from a 
 distance, came dribbling on to the scene of 
 action, and by-and-bye the gate over winch 
 Tom had vaulted a little time before was
 
 56 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 unslipped, a lialf-score of coats were thrown 
 hastily upon it, and on the stretcher thus 
 prepared, the wounded man, by this time 
 barely conscious, was borne away. 
 
 Amongst the late arrivals was the village 
 constable, to whose charge Tom was con- 
 fided. 
 
 ' The captain's shot,' said the coachman, 
 ' and this is the man as done it/ 
 
 ' Me the man ? ' cried Tom, indignant and 
 amazed. ' Why, we were wrestling together 
 when the shot was fired. I had no gun in 
 my hands. Any man on the ground can 
 swear to that.' 
 
 'I can swear different,' said the groom. 
 ' I saw a gun in your hands when T came up.' 
 
 ' You saw a walking-stick, you fool,' Tom 
 answered. ' My guns are both at home. 
 You'll find 'em there.' 
 
 ' Very sorry, sir,' said the constable. 
 ' Bad business, Mr. Barton, but you'll have to 
 come along o' me.' 
 
 ' Do you mean to tell me, Saunders,' said
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 57 
 
 Tom, staring at liim wonderingly, ' that you're 
 going to take any notice of tliis mad story ? 
 I heard those fellows firing, as I suppose the 
 rest of you did, and I came here to put a 
 stop to it.' 
 
 ' Yery sorry, i\Ir. Barton,' said the con- 
 stable, ' but ' he fumbled in his tail 
 
 pockets and produced something that jingled 
 and ghttered in the moonlight. 
 
 ' Don't try that on, Saunders,' said Tom, 
 grimly. ' I won't have them on my wrists 
 whilst there's life in my body. I'll go quietly 
 anywhere. I won't have that. Come to Sir 
 Ferdinand's. He'll put you fellows to the 
 right-about pretty soon, I fancy.' 
 
 Groom and coachman were merely human, 
 and they had long since taken sides. The 
 side they took was the one on whicli they 
 found their own bread buttered. The vil- 
 lagers had universally identified them with 
 the unpopular household, and they had their 
 own private sorenesses. Barton had spoken 
 loudly against Mr. Stanley Mallard a hundred
 
 58 TIME-'S REVENGES 
 
 times, and the fact of personal fend was plain 
 as the snn at midday. The men langhed 
 jeeringly at Barton's statement of the reason 
 of his presence on the scene, and the young 
 fellow, exasperated and wonder-stricken, found 
 himself marched along by the two like a 
 malefactor. A plain word with Sir Ferdinand 
 would put all right, however, and recollect- 
 ing how important it was to himself tliat 
 he should control his temper, he held his 
 tongue, and fought his inward rebellious forces 
 down. 
 
 Sir Ferdinand's house was a good three 
 miles away. Barton's captors talked to eacli 
 other and to the constable as they walked ; 
 and, to his consternation, he gathered their 
 belief that it was he who had assaulted 
 Captain Mallard, and not Captain Mallard 
 who had assaulted him. If the captain were 
 a true man at all he himself would put that 
 matter straight ; but it was awkward for the 
 moment, and he could see that the declaration 
 of the two men might be stronger than his
 
 TIMES REVEXGES 59 
 
 own unsupported woi'd, even with Sir Fer- 
 dinand. 
 
 Three-quarters of an hour brought them 
 to the Hall, and the young footman, staring 
 at the disordered baihff, who was a personal 
 crony of the butler's, and therefore a person 
 to be held in respect and awe, informed them 
 that his master was at that moment in the 
 library. 
 
 ' Captain Mallard's been wounded,' said 
 the constable, rising to a sense of his own 
 dignity and importance. Olr. Barton's charged 
 with it. Let Sir Ferdinand know as we're 
 here, and what the business is.' 
 
 Sir Ferdinand admitted the party in- 
 stantly, and Tom was allowed to tell his 
 story. He told it coherently and simply, and 
 his emjDloyer at once believed him. 
 
 ' I can't take upon myself to discharge 
 you. Barton,' he said finally. ' Tlie matter 
 will have to be examined into before the 
 Bench on Saturday. I don't think you will be 
 put to any great trouble to clear yourself, but
 
 6o TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 in the meantime I must bind you over to 
 appear.' 
 
 ' Thank you, Sir Ferdinand,' answered 
 Tom, ' I should hke to be allowed to walk 
 over and ask how the captain is. It was no 
 fault of mine, but I should be sorry to think 
 he'd come to mischief.' 
 
 'As soon as this business is over,' re- 
 sponded the baronet, ' I'll ride over to the 
 Abbey and make inquiries. That will do, 
 Saunders. This matter will be inquired into 
 on Saturday.' 
 
 ' Ain't I to lock him up, sir ? ' inquired the 
 constable. The majesty of the law seemed 
 affronted in his person. 
 
 ' Certainly not,' replied Sir Ferdinand 
 tartly, and the two withdrew. They com- 
 plained bitterly at the King William of Sir 
 Ferdinand's partiality ; but one or two of the 
 local cowards, who had been concerned in the 
 affray, had ventured to slip in there and 
 congratulated themselves on the news. They 
 had their own necks to save : but it would
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 6i 
 
 have been a pity if an innocent man should 
 have suffered. None the less, it was an 
 understood thing amongst them that it were 
 wise to let sleeping dogs lie ; and that if Mr. 
 Barton should happen to want a witness he 
 must find him elsewhere than amongst their 
 own number.
 
 62 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 The Petty Sessions at Castle Barfield were 
 held upon a Saturday, and early upon the 
 morning of that day Tom Barton presented 
 himself at the Hall with an inquiry for his 
 sweetheart. Mary was free of duty for the 
 time being, and ran down eagerly to meet 
 him. They were both quite confident and 
 bright about the final issue of the charge, for 
 Tom had told her the whole story, and it was 
 as plain as daylight itself that he was inno- 
 cent in the matter. All the same, there was 
 a certain nervous flutter about the heart, and 
 a little resentment on either side against the 
 stupidity of the charge and the meddlesome 
 folly of the people who had made it. 
 
 Kickards, the butler, had, on Tom's 
 arrival, brought the young fellow into his
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 63 
 
 own pantry, and had then delicately retired. 
 It was in the privacy of that apartment that 
 the sweethearts met. Their wedding-day was 
 fixed for only a week or two later, and when 
 Mary entered she ran straight to Tom's arms 
 as to her natural home. 
 
 ' I'm due at eleven, my dear,' said Tom, 
 ' and I've given myself plenty of time to walk 
 over. I'm told that mine won't be the 
 first case by two or three, but it'll be pretty 
 soon over, I reckon, and I'U come round 
 directly I get back again.' 
 
 ' I wish they could find the man who fired 
 tliat wicked shot,' said Mary. ' Mr. Eickards 
 said he got news from the captain's own 
 man late last night, and the poor young 
 gentleman's in a liigh fever.' 
 
 ' I'm sorry for him,' Tom res^^onded. ' I 
 won't say I've any love or liking for him, but 
 I never wished him harm. So far as 
 punching his head goes, that might be looked 
 on as another matter. Before he came to 
 mischief I'd have done that with all the
 
 64 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 readiness in life. But as for harming the man, 
 or lifting up a deadly weapon against any- 
 body ' 
 
 ' Why, of course, that's nonsense,' said 
 Mary decidedly. 'Nobody as knows you, 
 Tom, would believe it for a minute.' 
 
 ' That's a certainty,' said Tom, ' and here's 
 Sir Ferdinand ready to speak up for me, and, 
 as he tells me, Lord Barfield himself, if there 
 should be any need of it. I'm in no sort of 
 danger, my dear, so don't you fret about me. 
 I shall come back here first thing and tell you 
 all about it.' 
 
 ' Don't you go on an empty stomach, Tom,' 
 said his sweetheart, who had a turn for things 
 practical. ' I never could abide that Barfield 
 bread, a lot of baker-made stuff, all bone-dust 
 and alum and rubbish ; and as for the butter, 
 neither your mother nor mine would ever 
 have turned such stuff out of a dairy. Take 
 something with you, Tom, that's fit for a 
 Christian's eating.' 
 
 'I'm provided, my dear,' Tom responded,
 
 TIMES REJ'EXGES 65 
 
 patting the pocket of his coat. ' I shan't 
 faint by the way for want of provender. 
 Good-bye, Mary, and don't you worry. 
 There's as many as a dozen Heydon Hay folks 
 going over. Anj one of 'em will give me a 
 lift home again. So far as that goes, any one 
 of 'em would give me a lift to Barfield, but I 
 shouldn't hke to drive in with anybody until 
 I'm cleared. It'll be different coming back 
 again.' 
 
 He gave her a hearty hug and a kiss, and 
 she returned his embrace with equal warmth 
 and sincerity. She accompanied him to the 
 door which led to the courtyard, and thence 
 watched him as he strode manfully away, 
 waving his walking-stick in circles, and 
 obviously full of hope and spirit . 
 
 Mary went back to her pleasant labours 
 and thought of Tom all day. Lady de Blac- 
 quaire liked to have her maid about her 
 during her indoor hours, and whilst her lady- 
 ship wrote or read, or painted or embroidered ^ 
 mistress and maid would keep silent com- 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 panionship for hours. They were seated thus 
 together when Sir Ferdinand entered his 
 wife's apartment dressed for driving. 
 
 ' I am away to Castle Barfield, my 
 dear,' said he, ' about that case of young 
 Barton's.' 
 
 ' Do you take your place on the Bench to- 
 day ? ' the lady asked him. 
 
 'Not to-day," he answered. ' I shall give 
 evidence as to character, and I shall be able 
 to say that Captain Mallard at least does not 
 charge Barton with having fired at him. He 
 told me on the night of the disaster that for 
 anything he could say to the contrary the 
 shot might have been fired by another hand. 
 Heathcote told me last night,' he added, ' that 
 the elder man is back here. A solicitor has 
 been engaged, it appears, and they are moving 
 heaven and earth for witnesses. Mallard is 
 seriously embittered, which is in itself of 
 course quite natural. He blames his victim 
 for having suffered under him, and is deter- 
 mined to punish him for it if he can.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 67 
 
 ' Captain Mallard is worse this morning,' 
 said her ladyship. 
 
 ' Only slightly,' Sir Ferdinand answered. 
 ' He is feverish, light-headed at times, but the 
 doctors anticipate no danger. I must go 
 now. I shall be back at three o'clock or 
 thereabouts.' 
 
 Mary, steadfastly sewing in the back- 
 ground, listened to this conversation, but 
 caught no fear from it. Tom's innocence was 
 perfectly established in her mind, and not 
 only was that so, but Sir Ferdinand was 
 going to speak for him. She was not 
 acquainted with the ^personnel of the Bar- 
 field bench, but she knew that none of his 
 fellow-magistrates were on the same social 
 level with the husband of her mistress, and 
 from her earliest days she had been accus- 
 tomed to understand that whatever young 
 Mr. Ferdinand wanted was to be done. He 
 was no more an autocrat now than he had 
 been before the splendours of the baronetcy 
 lighted upon him, and to her simple rustic
 
 68 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 mind he was a sort of Lord Paramount, 
 before whose will the wishes and opinions of 
 other men must necessarily give way. She 
 was naturally a shrewd creature in spite of 
 these fancies. The belief in Sir Ferdinand's 
 environment she had been born into, and in 
 the refuge of his good opinion she felt that 
 Tom was safe from harm. 
 
 As the day wore on she felt curious and 
 
 eager to know how things were going. The 
 
 faintest touch of anxiety made itself felt 
 
 through her suppressed impatience — ^just the 
 
 faintest little touch in the world, and no 
 
 more. Towards mid-afternoon the hours 
 
 began to drag wofully, and after four o'clock 
 
 a minute was like an hour. One or two 
 
 guests were staying in the house, and during 
 
 their presence there the time of dinner had 
 
 been made later by an hour than usual. In 
 
 spite of that fact, Mary was busy with her 
 
 mistress's toilet, and there was no news 
 
 either of Tom or of Sir Ferdinand. Three 
 
 o'clock was the time the baronet had ap-
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 69 
 
 pointed for liis probable return, and now 
 seven was approaching. Suspense began to 
 tell upon her nerve. 
 
 ' Sir Ferdinand will be late for dinner,' 
 said her ladyship. ' He is not returned yet, 
 or we should have heard the dogcart.' 
 
 At that moment a rap sounded at the 
 door, and the baronet entered. He was 
 gloomy and out of temper, and his face 
 immediately betrayed the fact. 
 
 ' I have known a fool or two in my time,' 
 he began, wrathfuUy pulling off his gloves. 
 ' I have seen a blatant, self-opinionated ass 
 upon the bench before to-day, but never 
 until to-day have I seen a whole half-dozen 
 assembled in conclave together.' 
 
 ' Ferdinand,' said her ladyship, rising and 
 advancing hurriedly towards him, ' what has 
 happened ? You alarm Mary,' she added, in a 
 soft whisper. * Eemember the child's feelings." 
 
 ' My good girl,' said Sir Ferdinand, * you 
 need be under no apprehension about Barton. 
 Barton will come out all right.'
 
 70 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' Is lie safe, Sir Ferdinand ? ' she asked, 
 fighting for self-possession. The baronet's 
 words and manner frightened her, though 
 what she feared she knew not. Tom was 
 innocent, and Sir Ferdinand was on his side. 
 What could there be to alarm her ? 
 
 ' Is he safe ? ' the baronet repeated almost 
 pettishly. ' Oh, he's safe ! But upon my word, 
 Felicia, those addle-headed dullards have 
 committed him to take his trial.' 
 
 ' To take his trial ! ' said her ladyship ; 
 'but that is serious, Ferdinand.' 
 
 'Serious?' returned her husband. 'No. 
 It's awkward, it's uncomfortable, it's stupid ; 
 but it's not serious for anybody or for any- 
 thing except the reputation of the men who 
 did it. Barton's innocence, my dear, is as 
 clear as noonday.' 
 
 ' Sit down, child,' said her ladyship kindly. 
 ' You are looking ill.' Mary's fresh, clear 
 country colour had all flown from her comely 
 cheeks, and her eyes were wide oj)en with 
 a sudden terror. Her clasped hands trembled
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 71 
 
 before her, and she sank into the seat her 
 mistress hurriedly brought her. ' You must 
 not give way ; Sir Ferdinand will tell you 
 everything that has happened.' 
 
 Lady de Blacquaire and Mary Duffield 
 were not mere mistress and maid. The girl 
 had been more or less about her ladyship's 
 person from childhood, and there was a simple 
 and sincere attachment on both sides. 
 
 'Thank you, my lady,' said Mary, and 
 with clasped hands, pale face, and distended 
 eyes, awaited explanation. Sir Ferdinand, 
 holding both riding gloves in one hand, struck 
 them at measured intervals against the palm 
 of the other, and stood for a moment angry 
 and ill at ease. 
 
 ' 1 told you,' he began by-and-bye, ' that 
 I shouldn't take my seat on the bench. I sat 
 in the well of the court. There were half-a- 
 dozen of the solemn old fossils. Beasley, and 
 Brown, and Jordan you have met akeady ; 
 you know their mental calibre. The other 
 three were deafer, stupider, balder, and, if
 
 72 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 possible, more addle-headed. Mallard was 
 there. The people hooted him, and he came 
 into court very white and savage. He has 
 employed a Birmingham solicitor, a very 
 shrewd, hard-headed fellow, who has done his 
 best to get up a case for him.' 
 
 ' But what can they prove ? ' asked her 
 ladyship, with a sidelong glance at Mary's 
 frightened face. 
 
 ' Well, my dear,' returned Sir Ferdinand, 
 with evident reluctance, which he strove to 
 disguise by an added pettishness of manner, 
 ' they seem to think that they have proved 
 something. They have raked the parish for 
 witnesses, to show that Barton was incensed 
 against Mallard senior, and that Jie used 
 threats against him.' 
 
 ' But did they prove that ? ' 
 
 ' Well, yes,' said Sir Ferdinand ; ' they 
 proved that Barton was angry, and that he 
 said one or two rash and foolish things. I 
 scrawled a little note to him, and tried to 
 guide him as to the lines on which he should
 
 TIME'S REVESGES 73 
 
 cross-examine these adverse witnesses. He 
 stood up like a man, kept liis liead admirably, 
 and got at the whole story. The people were 
 packed in court like herrings in a barrel, and 
 once or twice they applauded his questions, 
 until the bench threatened to clear the court. 
 The witnesses, you see, my dear, were all 
 exceedingly favourable to Barton, and that 
 made matters worse if anything. They were 
 friends of his, and sided with him, and yet 
 they couldn't avoid admitting that Barton had 
 used threats.' 
 
 • I'm sure. Sir Ferdinand,' said Mary, fear 
 and anxiety getting the better of the awe 
 with which her thoughts generally surrounded 
 him, ' I'm sure he wouldn't hurt a fly.' 
 
 Oly dear, good child,' Sir Ferdinand 
 responded, with an increase of fretfulness in 
 his tone, ' I've known the man from his 
 childhood, and I don't know a better felloAV 
 anywhere.' 
 
 ' Thank you. Sir Ferdinand,' said Mary ; 
 and what with the pride awakened by this
 
 74 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 declaration and the emotion which had affected 
 her already, she began to cry a little. 
 
 ' But tell us, Ferdinand,' said her lady- 
 ship, 'how they came to commit him. It 
 was Captain Mallard who was shot. Had 
 Barton ever threatened liim ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said the baronet. ' There was no 
 proof of that. No attempt to prove it. The 
 contention is, you see, that Barton was on the 
 ground for an unlawful purpose. Mallard's 
 solicitor argued that the probabilities were 
 that Barton had got the gang together for 
 Mallard's annoyance, and that, being engaged 
 in an unlawful act, he was ])artice]ps criminis^ 
 whether he fired the shot or not.' 
 
 ' But is that the law ? ' her ladyship asked. 
 ' Can one man be punished for the act of 
 another ? ' 
 
 'Most assuredly he can,' her husband 
 answered, ' if it can be proved that his action 
 contributed to the commission of the crime.' 
 
 ' There were a score of them,' said her 
 ladyship, ' so the story goes, and all with
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 75 
 
 blackened faces. Barton had no vritnesses, 
 I suppose ? ' 
 
 ' None, except witnesses to character. 
 Heathcote spoke out well, and I 'did my best. 
 Mallard's lawyer put it that the territorial 
 influence was against his client. He went in, 
 hot and strong, for local prejudice against 
 Mallard, and did his best to discount the 
 evidence in Barton's favour. He's a low 
 fellow, the lawyer, a vulgar fellow, but as 
 keen as a needle. Two men. Mallard's groom 
 and coachman, swore that Barton assailed 
 Captain Mallard. They were cross-examined, 
 and very ably cross-examined too, but they 
 remained unshaken. Where the shot came 
 from they could not tell, for at the moment 
 they themselves were at actual fisticufis ; but 
 they swore that Barton had a gun in his hand, 
 and that when it was picked up at his feet 
 both barrels were empty.' 
 
 ' But what has become of the poor 
 fellow ? ' asked her ladyship. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said Sir Ferdinand, ' he's at home
 
 76 TIME-'S REVENGES 
 
 by this time. I instructed Barton to ask for 
 bail, but at first the bench refused it. I stood 
 up at that,' he added, kindhng into wrath as 
 he spoke, ' and gave them a piece of my mind. 
 I told them that Heathcote and I were pre- 
 pared to offer bail to any amount. We 
 had something of a tussle about it, but at 
 last I forced them to it, and Heathcote 
 and I became bail for five hundred pounds 
 apiece.' 
 
 ' Thank you, Sir Ferdinand,' said Mary, 
 whose tears were falling fast by this time. 
 
 ' You need have no fear, child,' he 
 answered, coughing to clear his throat, and 
 making his University drawl a little stronger 
 than usual. ' Barton will be well looked 
 after. I should have been here two or 
 three hours ago, Felicia, but I was determined 
 to see the thing in train at once. I put 
 Barton into the dogcart, drove him into 
 Birmingham, and found a smart criminal 
 lawyer. We talked the matter over with 
 him. and then drove to Beacon Hargate,
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 77 
 
 taking the lawyer with us. I was introduced 
 there to a tremendously smart fellow, a bar- 
 rister, Denton by name. He's staying with 
 the Conroys, and he will take up the case 
 when it comes to the assizes. So far, 
 everything has been done that can be done.' 
 
 ' You see, Mary, that you need be under 
 no alarm,' said her ladyship, ' and you may be 
 sure that in Sir Ferdinand's hands everything 
 will be safe.' 
 
 ' I know that, my lady,' returned the 
 maid, and, indeed, her faith in Sir Ferdinand 
 was absolute. But for all that this news had 
 shaken her, and she could not yet restrain 
 her tears. 
 
 ' You may leave me now, child,' said her 
 mistress, gently. 
 
 Mary obeyed, and Lady de Blacquaire 
 turned to her husband. 
 
 ' Now, tell me, Ferdinand ; your manner is 
 not altogether reassuring. You are certain 
 that Barton is in no danger ? ' 
 
 'To tell you the absolute truth, my dear,'
 
 78 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 he answered, ' I am certain of no such thing. 
 I have seen how half-a-dozen average, well- 
 meaning men can look at the case. They are 
 stupid people, but they are trying honestly to 
 do their duty, and to their minds the business 
 is a black one. That is only too evident. I 
 am in hope that a judge and jury may take a 
 different view, and I am certain that if they do 
 not, an innocent man will suffer.' 
 
 ' But do you know, dear,' said her lady- 
 ship, ' Mary and that poor fellow are engaged 
 to be married ? The banns will be published 
 for the second time to-morrow. Is he in any 
 danger ? They should be advised to postpone 
 the wedding.' 
 
 ' Let us look,' said Sir Ferdinand, ' at 
 the affair as it presents itself to people who 
 don't know the prisoner. He hates the 
 Mallards, and has reason to hate them. They 
 have done him a great and unprovoked injury, 
 and the whole country-side knows as much. 
 Under these circumstances he is found in the 
 company of a crowd of ruffians with vizored
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 79 
 
 faces wlio are engaged in open breach of the 
 law, obviously for Mallard's annoyance. Then 
 it is sworn that on young Mallard's arrival the 
 prisoner at once assaults him. Then it is 
 known that Mallard is shot, and it is proved 
 that the gun the prisoner held in his hand 
 had been at least recently fired.' 
 
 Her ladyship's face clouded under all this, 
 and her husband added dejectedly a moment 
 later : — 
 
 ' It's a troublesome business, my dear, and 
 I wish we were well through with it.' 
 
 ' I trust we may be,' returned her lady- 
 ship ; ' but you are late already, Ferdinand. 
 You have only ten minutes left to dress in.'
 
 So TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 CHAPTER Y 
 
 Theee was an autumn mist abroad that Satur- 
 day night. It was chill and heavy, and it 
 bore with it the first suggestion of coming 
 winter. In tlie village street the windows, lit 
 never so brightly from within by fire and 
 candle, shone with a pale, blurred gleam to 
 the wayfarer who took the footpath, whilst 
 from the opposite side of the road they were 
 almost invisible. The trees and hedges 
 dripped with moisture, and the air was full of 
 heavily-laden gossamer. The smith's forge, 
 unexpectedly open for some job of shoeing, 
 sent out a glow of light a yard or two into the 
 gloomy weather, and the tinkle of hammer 
 and anvil sounded subdued and dull. But, 
 the forge once passed, the fog settled down
 
 TIME'S REVENGES $i 
 
 into deep darkness, and a sudden coldness and 
 loneliness fell on a blank world. 
 
 Tom Barton carried a lanthorn, and by its 
 light could just manage to keep the middle of 
 the road. The tink-a-tink-tink of the forge 
 died into silence behind him. The little circle 
 of light went dancing along with him, reveal- 
 ing the well-worn ruts of the road and strikincr 
 fire on the shallow pools of rain, but, reveahng 
 no more than these things, gave him a curious 
 feeling of obstructed effort — a sense of arrest 
 in motion — as if his swift footsteps made no 
 progress. Once or twice, to dispel this feeling, 
 he walked nearer to the hedgerow on one 
 side or the other, so that he might at least 
 see the boughs as he passed them ; but the 
 going was uneasy except in the middle of the 
 road, and he finally resigned himself to the 
 blindfold night, and tried to think no more 
 about it. 
 
 He was not in the least an imaginative 
 man, and, apart from that, he was native born 
 and rustic bred, and was used to being out in 
 
 TOL. I. G
 
 82 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 all sorts of weather. Conditions of climate 
 were as little likely to have an emotional 
 effect on liim as on any man alive, and yet 
 somehow the night seemed like his mental 
 state, and made him comfortless. The fog 
 about him made an apt figure for the shutting 
 in of his mental prospect, tliougli it was infi- 
 nitely the less dreary of the two. He knew 
 in what direction his actual footsteps led him, 
 but the fog of circumstance was thicker than 
 the dense autumn mist he walked in, and it 
 seemed to have fallen around liim in a strange 
 country. 
 
 A great deal has been said and written 
 about that supporting sense of innocence 
 which is supposed to lend strength and con- 
 fidence to the unjustly accused. For the 
 most part it is sad nonsense, and at its best is 
 only true, or partly true, of one individual 
 here and there who happens to be blest with 
 an uncommon temper. Tom Barton felt under 
 unjust suspicion pretty much what you and I 
 would feel, and hi-s sensations were mainly
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 83 
 
 compounded of bewilderment and indignation. 
 To begin with, he was innocent, and how in 
 the name of all that was wonderful that fact 
 should not be transparent to everybody who 
 heard his story he could not understand. 
 For a minute at a time his anger warmed him. 
 But then came a dreadful fear. Suppose that 
 a judge and a jury were as stupid as a bench 
 of magistrates ? For Tom was not learned in 
 the law, and to him a committal to trial looked 
 seriously like a conviction. There had been 
 moments in the course of that afternoon and 
 evening which had been altogether bitter to 
 him. 
 
 He made his way to the great house, and, 
 entering the kitchen there, was received with 
 marked distinction. The household naturally 
 took its tone from Sir Ferdinand, and Tom 
 was a martyr and a hero. Had he walked 
 among the household at the Abbey he would 
 have encountered a different reception, for 
 there the tone was taken from Mr. Stanley 
 Mallard, in whose eyes Tom was a desperate 
 
 G 2
 
 84 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 scoundrel, a fomenter of sedition and disturb- 
 ance. The great political game is played the 
 wide world over in matters that have no 
 association with politics. Facts remain un- 
 changed, but opinions are as opposite as the 
 poles. People see what it is their duty to see, 
 or their inclination. The man of no prejudice 
 is a Sadducee. 
 
 Tom was a little grim and quiet, and 
 declined to say much in answer to the ques- 
 tions and speculations of Sir Ferdinand's 
 domestics. He asked for Miss Duffield, and 
 his friend Mr. Eickards, the butler, once more 
 surrendered his pantry, to allow of the lovers' 
 colloquy being held in private. 
 
 ' I'd hoped to bring you better news, my 
 dear,' said Tom, when the girl came down to 
 join him. She had gathered courage from 
 Sir Ferdinand's assertion of her sweetheart's 
 safety, and met him with composure. 
 
 ' It'll all come right, Tom,' she answered. 
 
 ' I hope it may,' said Tom, ' and I believe 
 it will, but all the same I've something serious
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 85 
 
 to say, and maybe something serious to do. 
 I want to talk about it.' 
 
 ' Sit down, Tom. We shan't be disturbed 
 here. What is it ? ' 
 
 'Now, don't let me frighten you, darling,' 
 he answered. ' But look here.' He stared at 
 the fire for a little while, his head drooping, 
 and his whole manner indicating uncertainty. 
 Suddenly he looked her in the face, and took" 
 both her hands in his. ' Suppose it shouldn't 
 come all right, Mary ? ' 
 
 'Tom,' she cried, 'you mustn't talk Hke 
 that.' 
 
 'My dear,' said Tom, 'I've got to talk 
 like that. I must. We've got to look things 
 in the face. Things look darker than I 
 thought they did. I'm not afraid, but sup- 
 pose " 
 
 'I shan't suppose anythin' of the sort,' 
 said Mary. ' Nobody's goin' to disgrace an 
 innocent man at this time o' day in Eng- 
 land. I won't beheve in it. I won't listen to 
 it.'
 
 86 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' I thought,' said Tom, ' that I had only 
 got to go into court, and tell a plain tale, to 
 be set free again. I find it isn't so.' 
 
 She threw herself impetuously upon his 
 breast, and he put both arms around her. 
 
 '1 don't say I'm afraid, my darlin'. I 
 don't want to frighten you. I wouldn't for 
 the world. But I've come up to have a talk 
 with you about it, and it's my plain duty to 
 put matters straight before you. You know, 
 
 Mary ' He paused for a moment, and 
 
 then went on again with a voice which, in 
 spite of his best efforts, was not altogether 
 steady. ' We was cried in church last 
 Sunday.' She pressed a little closer to him 
 and kissed his weather-beaten cheek. 'We 
 are to be cried again to-morrow. That 
 mustn't be.' 
 
 ' Mustn't be ? ' she answered in a wounded 
 voice. ' Mustn't be, Tom ? ' She drew her- 
 self from his embrace, and looked at him with 
 a glance in which fear, affection, and reproach 
 were all commingled. ' Why, my darlin'.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 87 
 
 there's nothin' happened to come betwixt you 
 and me ? ' 
 
 He kissed her mournfully and tenderly. 
 
 ' Look here, Mary ; the day I'm cleared 
 I'm yours. There's no occasion for you and 
 me to talk about things. We understand one 
 another. We belong to one another. I don't 
 suppose you've any more doubt about me 
 than I have about you. But till I'm cleared 
 I can't ask you to marry me.' 
 
 ' Now, Tom, dear,' she answered, coax- 
 ingly, ' don't you talk nonsense. It isn't like 
 you, Tom.' 
 
 ' But, my dear ' 
 
 'Do you think so mean of me, Tom, that 
 I should want to turn my back on you 
 because you're in a bit o' trouble ? ' 
 
 ' Xo, my darlin', but I'm thinking what's 
 my duty to you. You know I love you. 
 You know I've been looking forward to this 
 time for a year and a half and more. But Td 
 sooner give my body to be burned than I'd 
 lead you into trouble, and — I'm not sure, my
 
 88 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 dear. I'm not sure. It's wisest to wait. 
 Believe me. It's a deal the wisest thing 
 to do.' 
 
 ' Now, Tom,' said the girl, laying a hand 
 on either of his shoulders, and shaking him 
 in her earnestness. ' Listen to me. If there's 
 any danger of evil befalhn' you, that's all the 
 more reason why I shouldn't leave you.' 
 
 ' Wait till I'm cleared, my dear,' said Tom. 
 
 ' What for ? ' she asked him, in a manner 
 almost defiant. 
 
 ' Suppose I shouldn't happen to be cleared 
 after all,' he answered. ' This is serious, 
 Mary. I don't look for it. I can't believe 
 that it'll happen ; but there's the chance, and 
 I've got to look at that.' 
 
 'Yes,' she said, quietly and firmly, still 
 holding him by both shoulders, ^ we've got 
 to look at it. I should just follow you 
 across the world, Tom. If you don't want 
 me ' 
 
 ' Mary ! ' 
 
 ' Don't you see, Tom, that if there should
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 89 
 
 be anything in what you say, that it's all the 
 more reason why we should get married now ? 
 Nothing is going to hurt you. You'll come 
 out of it all as clear as daylight. But if you 
 didn't that's no reason for our parting. I 
 should never take it for a reason. ^Ve love 
 one another ' — she blushed a httle, but she 
 looked him none the less bravely in the eyes — 
 ' and nothing's going to part us. If anything 
 happened to you, and we weren't married 
 beforehand, we should be part-ed. Why, 
 Tom, dear, you're talking nonsense. You 
 know you are.' 
 
 ' I think you're the bravest girl in the 
 world,' said Tom. 
 
 ' Nonsense I ' said the girl. • If I'm brave 
 it's only because there's nothing to be afraid 
 of.' 
 
 ' Suppose I was found guilty, Mary ? ' 
 
 ' You won't be,' she returned. ' You'U 
 come out as clear as the day.' 
 
 ' But if I should be .^ ' he urged. 
 
 ' If you should be,' she answered brightly,
 
 90 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 and yet seriously, ' there'd be all the less 
 reason for my turning away from you. Tom, 
 dear,' she cried, clinging to him anew, and 
 hiding her face upon his breast, ' don't you 
 see that that's the one thing in the world as'd 
 make me all the more determined to marry 
 you beforehand ? Do you think I'd let you 
 go out into the world alone ? D'ye think I'd 
 wait at home till you came back again? 
 No ; I'd find some place to be near you. If 
 they sent you to Botany Bay I'd follow you. 
 Tell me you don't want me, and I've got 
 a spirit of my own, and I can let you go. 
 But not while I know you love me, Tom. 
 Not while I know you'd break your heart 
 without me, just as I should break my heart 
 if you went away and left me.' 
 
 Her tears were falling silently, and when 
 he stooped to kiss her he felt them on his lips 
 and on her cheek. 
 
 ' I can't think I'm in any real danger,' he 
 said, ' but I thought it right to warn you.' 
 
 'I don't care about your warning,' she
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 91 
 
 answered, her voice unbroken by her tears, 
 thougli tliev Tvere runnincr faster. ' When 
 a girl gives her heart she doesn't take it back 
 again. Whatever happens you're the same 
 Tom to me. If you're going to be in trouble 
 there's the more need that you should have 
 somebody as you can trust in, somebody as 
 you can be sure of, somebody as loves you. 
 If ever you shouldn't hke me any longer, teU. 
 me so, and I'll go away and never be a trouble 
 to you.' 
 
 ' That won't happen,' said Tom Barton, 
 quietly. 'But suppose the worst should 
 happen, wouldn't you be unhappier if we 
 were tied together than you would be if I left 
 you free ? ' 
 
 ' No,' she answered ; ' I should be wretched^ 
 Tom, dear. But if I was your lawful wedded 
 wife I should know that you was innocent,, 
 and I should wait and be contented. Don't 
 try to change me.' 
 
 The time was simple, and the folk amongst 
 whom these two were bred were simple people.
 
 92 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 There are some born in another sphere, and 
 bred in another fashion, who might have felt 
 so open an insistence wanting in maidenhness. 
 But to those two the fact that they loved 
 each other levelled all barriers of that sort, 
 and the girl could dare to speak her heart. 
 Her lover was the last man in the world to 
 find fault with her plain avowal of the truth 
 that she loved him, and claimed the riglit to 
 cleave to liim in pain and disgrace, if pain 
 and disgrace should come. 
 
 ' If I'm not a lucky man all round,' said 
 Tom, ' I've got my share of joy in thee. My 
 brave little lass, th'art ! No more talk of 
 partin', dear. Thee and me's one for the rest 
 of our lives. Give us a kiss and dry thine 
 eyes, Mary.' 
 
 She obeyed him, and they clung together 
 fondly. In that happy minute trouble looked 
 impossible. Heaven would let no undeserved 
 mischief fall on a heart so true and faithful. 
 So each thought as they embraced, and as 
 they each called down blessings on the other.
 
 TIME-S REVENGES 93 
 
 Butler Eickards tapped discreetly at the 
 door, and waited until he was requested to 
 enter. Mary made no eflbrt to remove the 
 traces of her tears, but faced him with her 
 lashes still wet, and a face beaming with 
 feeling and resolve. 
 
 ' Her ladyship's heard you're here. Barton/ 
 said Eickards, ' and she has a word to say to 
 you and ]\Iiss Duffield together. You're to 
 go up to her own budwer.' 
 
 This was a command not likely to be 
 disregarded, and Tom, having polished his 
 boots on the hall door-mat until the very 
 soles of his feet were warm, followed Mary 
 upstairs, and was introduced to her ladyship's 
 presence. 
 
 Lady de Blacquaire at this period was 
 reckoned a remarkably handsome woman, 
 and what with her brilliant attire, her bare 
 arms and shoulders, and her flashing jewels, 
 looked very much like a creature of another 
 sphere to Barton. 
 
 ' I have sent for you,' she began, ' because
 
 94 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 I wish to speak to you in Mary's interest. Do 
 you think it wise to get married just at this 
 time ? ' 
 
 The question came suddenly, and the 
 young fellow had not had time to grow 
 acclimatised to the unaccustomed aspect of 
 the place and the splendour of the person 
 who addressed him. Mary answered for him, 
 speaking quietly, but with heightened colour, 
 and at first with a little catching of the 
 breath. 
 
 ' That's the very thing, my lady, as we've 
 been talking about. Tom wanted to prevent 
 the banns from being cried to-morrow.' 
 
 There was a touch of protest in the tone, 
 almost of indignation, which caused her lady- 
 ship to lift her eyebrows in some astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 ' And don't you think that wise under the 
 circumstances ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' No, my lady,' returned Mary. ' I didn't 
 think of listening to it for a minute.' 
 
 Her speech and bearing were less homely
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 95 
 
 in her lady ship's presence than they had been 
 when she and Tom ^vere alone, but in spite of 
 that change she wore the same air of simple 
 sincerity. 
 
 ' You are surely not in haste to run away 
 from me, Mary?' said her ladyship. 
 
 ' I'm in no hurry to be married, my lady,' 
 the girl answered, with a certain mild, defen- 
 sive dignity. ' If there was any reason for it 
 I'd wait a year. But I shouldn't be doing my 
 duty if I turned my back on Tom at this time 
 of all others.' 
 
 Lady de Blacquaire was greatly troubled 
 in her mind. She had more than a common 
 liking for her pretty retainer, and Sir Fer- 
 dinand had alarmed her. 
 
 ' I think it showed very good sense and 
 very good feeling on your part, Barton, to 
 make that proposal,' she said graciously. 
 ' But you must let me speak to Mary alone. 
 I see I shall not have to convince you.' 
 
 'Your ladyship,' said Tom, finding tongue 
 for the first time, ' we've made our minds up.
 
 96 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 I came here to ask her not to do it, but we've 
 made our minds up.' 
 
 ' I don't want to alarm you, Barton,' her 
 ladyship returned, ' and I hope with all my 
 heart that no mischief will happen to you. 
 If I were not absolutely sure of your inno- 
 cence I would never have allowed Mary to 
 meet you this evening.' Her ladyship, per- 
 haps, miscalculated her own influence in this 
 matter. ' But you must think. If you do 
 not succeed in clearing yourself, how cruel a 
 thing it would be to marry just at present.' 
 
 'Your pardon, my lady!' said Tom. *I 
 thought so myself an hour ago ; but now I 
 know different. It'd be a crueller thing not 
 to marry.' 
 
 ' Leave us alone a little while,' said her 
 ladyship. ' Wait outside.' 
 
 Tom retired, and Lady de Blacquaire set 
 to work to convert her maid from the ways 
 of romance to those of common sense and 
 expediency. But the maid was firm as ada- 
 mant, and had but one answer.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 97 
 
 ' I shan't give up my chance of helping 
 to make him happy, my lady.' 
 
 Sir Ferdinand was summoned. He came ; 
 but he lent only a half-hearted advocacy to 
 his wife's cause. Mary stood firm, and was 
 at length despairingly dismissed to rejoin her 
 sweetheart. 
 
 ' I had never dreamed,' said her ladyship, 
 * that the girl could be so obstinate and self- 
 willed.' 
 
 ' I wish,' said Sir Ferdinand, fixing his 
 eye-glass and arranging his cravat with un- 
 necessary minuteness before a mirror, ' I wish 
 there were more of her pattern.' 
 
 ' My dear,' said her ladyship, rising and 
 laying a hand upon his shoulder. 
 
 'It's a fact,' said Sir Ferdinand, with a 
 more portentous drawl than common. ' Your 
 penetration has not deceived you. I think 
 Tom Barton one of the luckiest men I know. 
 And the girl — the girl's a jewel.' 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 98 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 CHAPTEK VI 
 
 So the banns were cried on the morrow, 
 after all. They were repeated on the fol- 
 lowing Sunday, and a week later Tom Barton 
 and Mary Duffield were made man and wife. 
 There was derision at the Abbey ; but else- 
 where there was nothing but congratulation. 
 There was such a scene at the wedding as 
 Heydon Hay had never before witnessed. 
 The church was packed, floor and gallery ; 
 the very organ loft was invaded, and the 
 aisles were thronged. A bigger congregation 
 than often assembled within the building 
 hung about the churchyard during the cere- 
 mony, and when the bride and bridegroom 
 emerged from the porch they were cheered 
 with great heartiness. 
 
 Tom took his wife home, and the round
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 99 
 
 of life went on. The young married folks 
 were as happy as they well could be, and 
 in a little while the possibihty of separation 
 grew to look so monstrous that they began 
 to put the event out of their calculations 
 altogether. The fact of the danger which 
 still overhung their happiness was made 
 manifest once or twice by visits from the 
 solicitor Sir Ferdinand had engaged for Tom's 
 defence. On one occasion, which looked 
 memorable at the time, and in the light of 
 after-years grew to be vastly more note- 
 worthy, the solicitor brought with him that 
 Mr. Denton, barrister, of whom Sir Ferdinand 
 had spoken to her ladyship. 
 
 The eminent jurist of later days was at 
 this time a man of about forty. He was 
 grizzled before his time, but his eye-brows 
 were still intensely black, and his thin cheeks, 
 dogged chin, and mobile upper lip had a 
 blue bloom upon them which the closest 
 application of the razor could never remove. 
 He was brief of stature and spare of build, 
 
 H 2
 
 lOO TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 and yet few people carried away the im- 
 pression of his being a small man. It is a 
 matter of difficulty for the average run oi 
 small men not to look cocky when they 
 strive to be dignified ; but a very cool and 
 impassive dignity was natural to Denton. 
 His ordinary manner was marked by a lan- 
 guid assurance ; but he could flash into an 
 extraordinary vehemence at times, and car- 
 ried with him at such moments something 
 of an electric faculty, whether they came to 
 him in public or in private. He either 
 bore a good deal of his forensic manner with 
 him into common life, or took his common 
 manner with him into court. A cold, listless 
 urbanity overlay the dignity of his bearing, 
 and but for his occasional flashes one might 
 have supposed him to be the weariest man 
 in the world. 
 
 Mr. Jackley, the solicitor, who had 
 already come to be something of a familiar 
 figure to Barton, brought the barrister to 
 Heydon Hay on a sparkling winter morning
 
 TIME'S REVENGES loi 
 
 within a week of the sitting of the assize 
 court. Barton had been apprised by letter of 
 their coming, and at the appointed hour was 
 ready to receive them. 
 
 ' Assuming you to be an innocent man, 
 Mr. Barton,' said the barrister, when the 
 preliminaries of introduction were over, ' it 
 remains to establish your innocence. It is a 
 lovely morning for a walk. Would you allow 
 me to suggest that we should take a look 
 at the locality, whilst you represent the 
 precise nature of the matter to me ? ' 
 
 Tom assenting, the accused, the solicitor, 
 and the barrister set out toiiether. The 
 locality was shown, and, leaning over the live- 
 barred gate which Tom had vaulted on the 
 most eventful night of his life, the two took 
 in the surroundings, and Tom told his story. 
 He was a plain and sober talker, but he had 
 a faculty which sometimes comes of mere 
 sincerity, and is rarely indeed found out of 
 its company, of saying exactly what he wished 
 to say, and of carrying, neat and undiluted,
 
 102 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 an image from his own mind to the mind of 
 his hearer. 
 
 Denton listened with his languid air, but 
 once, and once only, his eyes met the nar- 
 rator's with a flash of inquiry so keen and 
 searching that Barton was more than assured 
 of his attention. This was when Barton spoke 
 of the black- vizored scoundrel who had fired 
 U230n him. 
 
 ' You have no hope of finding a witness 
 amongst the gang?' asked Denton, appeal- 
 ing to the solicitor. 
 
 ' None whatever,' was the answer. 
 
 ' You're a married man, Mr. Barton ? ' 
 said Denton. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' said Barton. ' I'm a married 
 man.' 
 
 ' Long married .^ ' 
 
 ' Seven weeks, come Wednesday.' 
 
 ' KSince your committal for trial, then P ' said 
 Denton, drily. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' Tom responded, ' that day 
 fortnight.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 103 
 
 * Of course,' said Denton, ' your wife was 
 aware of your position ? ' 
 
 ' Of course,' Tom answered, simply. 
 
 ' Had you either of you any idea that the 
 position might be serious ? ' 
 
 ' Why, yes, sir. I went up to the Hall 
 about it the night after petty sessions. The 
 banns was going to be called for the second 
 time next day. My wife was Lady de Blac- 
 quaire's maid. I tried to persuade her out of 
 going on with the marriage till the assize was 
 over.' 
 
 ' You tried that, eh P ' said Denton, lan- 
 guidly, without looking at him. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' said Tom, ' I tried my best. I 
 know I was mistaken now, but at the time I 
 thought it wasn't the wisest thing to do. Her 
 ladyship tried, and so did Sir Ferdinand.' 
 
 ' And how did your wife argue to con- 
 vince you all ? ' asked Denton. 
 
 ' Why, sir,' said Tom, simply, ' she put it 
 this way. If nothing was going to happen 
 there was no reason for alteriniz our arrancre-
 
 104 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ments, and if harm should befall me, she'd 
 have a right to follow me. We should be 
 tied together, don't you see, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Was that Mrs. Barton who opened the 
 door to me an hour ago ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' said Tom. ' That was Mrs. 
 Barton.' 
 
 ' H'm,' said the barrister, and for the time 
 being said no more. ' How about luncheon, 
 Jackley ? ' he asked, a moment later. 
 
 ' If you'll honour me, sir,' said Tom, 
 ' dinner's ready at one o'clock, and I'm sure 
 you're kindly welcome.' 
 
 ' You are very good, Mr. Barton,' returned 
 the barrister : ' we shall not put you about at 
 all?' 
 
 ' Not at all, sir.' 
 
 Tom was proud of Mrs. Barton's cooking, 
 and was glad to have an opportunity of dis- 
 playing its virtues to people of quality. He 
 knew instinctively that Messrs. Denton and 
 Jackley were not on the same social level, but 
 to a plain-bred farmer like himself the
 
 TIME-S REVENGES 105 
 
 solicitor was a personage. The Eepublican 
 ideas which prevail to-day were then the 
 property of a few, and Tom Barton, at least, 
 had no thought of upsetting social distinc- 
 tions. 
 
 ' What with Mrs. Barton not being quite 
 certain about my being home to the minute, 
 as I generally |'am,' he says, ' I may have to 
 ask you to wait a bit, gentlemen ; but if you 
 don't mind my going on ahead I'll hurry 
 matters up a bit.' 
 
 • Thank you very much, Mr. Barton,' said 
 Denton, and Tom swung off ahead at a pace 
 of six miles an hour. 
 
 ' Stalwart fellow that,' said Denton. 
 
 ' A very fine fellow all round, I'm in- 
 clined to fancy,' returned the solicitor. 
 
 ' Ye-es,' said Denton, in his uninterested 
 Avay. ' Eather an unusual couple. Look at 
 the woman's face when we are at the table. 
 Full of character, I thought it. So is the 
 husband's.' 
 
 ' Sir Ferdinand de Blacquaire,' said the
 
 io6 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 solicitor, ' has the highest opinion of them 
 both. Eather a pompous man, Sir Ferdi- 
 nand. A httle overbearing for his years, but 
 kindly hearted. He defends this young 
 fellow at his own cost, and is perfectly per- 
 suaded of the truth of his story.' 
 
 Mr. Jackley knew the way to Barton's 
 house, and piloted his companion thither. 
 There was no further talk between them. 
 
 Mrs. Barton and the trim httle maid who 
 was her only helper set out the table in the 
 old-fashioned kitchen. The floor was com- 
 posed of those large square tiles peculiar to 
 the district, and the broad, low roof and 
 sombre walls were panelled in old oak. The 
 ceiling, in which a lover of old-world things 
 would have delighted, had been grievously 
 maltreated, and was studded with hooked 
 nails, from which were suspended good store 
 of canvas-clad hams and bacon and ropes of 
 shining onions. The napery of the table 
 was white as driven snow, and the glass and 
 delf ware were polished to the last perfec-
 
 TIME'S REVENGES lo; 
 
 tion of cleanliness. The best of home- 
 brewed, a relic of the Barton Farm, sparkled 
 on the board, and the convives ate and 
 drank heartily and pleasantly together. 
 
 Denton, waking from his apparent apathy, 
 told a story which threw his hearers into 
 shouts of laughter, and proved himself a 
 most delightful companion. He went silent 
 after this, or nearly, for he devoted himself 
 solely to drawing out his host and hostess, 
 and watching without seeming to watch. 
 Before the meal was fairly over there was no 
 secret of their homely hves which he had not 
 discovered, and, when he was gone, Tom and 
 his wife wondered together that they should 
 so have opened their hearts to a stranger. He 
 knew the whole story of their courtship, he 
 knew where they had first met together, how 
 Tom had first approached his sweetheart, and 
 what he had said to her on that eventful oc- 
 casion, and what she had said to him. There 
 were peals of laughter at simple jests and 
 little touches of tenderness over simple re-
 
 ic8 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 minisceiices, and somehow these were all of 
 Mr. Denton's making, though he took the 
 smallest share in the conversation. He knew 
 the whole story of the ejection from the farm, 
 and out of Tom's blunt, yet vivid, narrative 
 drew for himself a clear picture of the in- 
 truding Mallard and the uprooted farmer. 
 
 After the substantial mid-day dinner he 
 smoked his cigar whilst his host took a pipe. 
 Mary sat by the cheerful fireside knitting. 
 The very dog, a tough collie of Tom's own 
 breeding, notable for his reserve towards 
 ordinary strangers, was on terms of intimacy 
 with Denton before he rose to shake hands 
 and take his way. We say nowadays, of 
 Denton's like, that he has an electric or 
 hypnotic faculty. At that time of day there 
 were no words to describe his particular 
 characteristic, but the man flourished none 
 the less, and has flourished in every age and 
 all societies. Wherever you find him he is 
 the leader of men. Dignified, without ap- 
 parent dignity ; suasive, without apparent
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 109 
 
 suavity ; understanding, penetrating, enlisting 
 immediate sympathy and confidence, learning 
 all things, telling^nothing. Mr. Denton was, 
 indeed, in many respects a very remarkable 
 man : and, though he drops necessarily out 
 of this story for awhile, played a Very 
 remarkable part in the moving story of Tom 
 Barton's life. The reader is requested to 
 keep an eye upon him. 
 
 Denton left the newly-married couple 
 brightened and hopeful, -without so much as 
 having spoken a word of encouragement, and 
 they continued bright and hopeful until the 
 day of trial came. At the opening of the 
 Assizes, Tom surrendered to his bail, and 
 Mary went with him to the county town. 
 The grand jury found a true bill, and the case 
 was fixed for hearing on the Wednesday. Half 
 Heydon Hay was in court. The Earl of 
 Barfield, Sir Ferdinand, and Parson Heath- 
 cote sat on the bench, on the judge's left, 
 and all nodded encouragingly to the prisoner 
 as he took his place in the dock. Mr. Ire-
 
 no TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 land, Q.C., a gentleman at that day eminent 
 at the Bar, was for the prosecution. He 
 was terribly keen and dangerous, but with 
 his wig tilted forward over his forehead, 
 wore the air of a weary parrot, half-asleep 
 upon his perch. Denton sat opposite in the 
 well, alert from head to foot, his airs of lan- 
 guor all dissipated ; his lean face and gleam- 
 ing coal-black eyes looked masterly under 
 the forensic wig, and Mary, who watched 
 him with a fluttering heart, felt safe in his 
 hands. Mr. Justice Wormould was on the 
 bench, and a mere three minutes back had 
 sent a lowly housebreaker to penal servitude 
 for hfe. Somebody had whispered in Mary's 
 hearing that Wormould Avas fond of heavy 
 sentences, and this chance phrase sent her 
 into a tremor of anxiety. Her face went 
 white as chalk, and her hands, though she 
 clasped them tightly, trembled. She dared 
 scarcely raise her eyes to Tom's face, but 
 when she ventured to steal a look at him 
 his aspect helped her to compose herself.
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES iif 
 
 He was a trifle pale, to be sure, and there 
 was a glitter in his eyes which she had not 
 seen there before ; but he bore himself like 
 a man, and to her mind at least his face 
 and bearing should have cried Innocence 
 audibly to all the Court. 
 
 The case began, and Captain Mallard was 
 the first witness. He spoke clearly, and with 
 no perceptible animus : but under Mr. Ire- 
 land's leading he stated that the prisoner 
 had assaulted him. Denton assailed him on 
 this point alone, and there shook his testi- 
 mony. The struggle between them might 
 have come about as the result of a simul- 
 taneous grapple. It might even have been 
 begun by himself. He confessed to having 
 been angry and excited, and admitted that 
 he had asked for no explanation. There 
 was a point gained, and Mary breathed more 
 freely. The groom and coachman were less 
 ductile to Denton's touch, and each swore 
 positively that the prisoner had assaulted 
 Captain Mallard. They were quite unshak-
 
 112 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 able on this point, and, to do them justice, 
 were honest in their testimony. Mary's 
 heart sank again, and, though in the main 
 she was as httle prone to think evil as any 
 person within those walls, she thought then 
 and always that the men were perjured. 
 She knew every detail of Tom's story, and 
 believed it with absolute and unquestioning 
 faith. 
 
 There were a dozen unwilling witnesses 
 to the fact that Tom had spoken in angry 
 and opprobrious terms of Mr. Stanley Mal- 
 lard ; but none of them could prove animus 
 on his part against the younger man. The 
 theory sought to be established by the pro- 
 secution was plausible enough. There had 
 been a bitter quarrel between the incomers 
 at the Abbey and the outgoers at Barton 
 Farm. The prisoner liad hired a gang of 
 masked depredators to commit an open out- 
 rage in Mallard's preserves. One of the 
 hired, or otherwise invited, crowd had mur- 
 derously fired on Captain Mallard. For this
 
 TIME'S REVENGES' 113 
 
 act, since it was the direct outcome of the 
 prisoner's conduct, he must be held legally 
 as responsible as if he himself had discharged 
 the gun. That, Mr. Ireland told the jury, 
 was the plain legal statement of the case, 
 and would be confirmed by his lordship. 
 
 Denton's address was powerful, and in 
 the course of its delivery Mary ?aw Tom 
 triumphantly acquitted. Xo quarrel between 
 Captain Mallard and the prisoner had been 
 so much as hinted at. Denton deplored the 
 fact that the prisoner's moutli was closed, 
 and that he was forbidden to offer a plain 
 statement in his own defence. He himself 
 told the tale, but could see one or two of 
 the members of the jury smiling at it. He 
 felt his weakness there, and knew where the 
 strength of his case lay. He pictured his 
 client, a young man universally respected, 
 newly married to the heroic and devoted 
 girl who had refused credence to a story 
 which gave the lie to her lover's whole history, 
 and he promised the jury such witnesses to 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 character as were rarely seen in a court of 
 criminal procedure. He played all the 
 forensic wiles, pouring vials of contempt on 
 the scheme of the prosecution, which was 
 unsupported by a single fact apart from the 
 prisoner's presence on the ground. He 
 painted a moving picture of domestic happi- 
 ness for ever ruined, a devoted, a heart- 
 broken, and a blameless wife stained with the 
 hand of infamy. He held the jury there, and 
 there was not a man amongst them who 
 would not have said ' Not Guilty ' whilst the 
 echoes of that persuasive eloquence still 
 lingered in his ears. 
 
 Then came the witnesses to character. 
 The testy old nobleman, with his ferret 
 features and close- cropped head of reddish- 
 grey, pooh-poohed in his own pettishly im- 
 perious fashion the mere idea of the prisoner's 
 guilt. 
 
 ' You have known him all his life, I 
 think ? ' asked Denton. 
 
 ' I have known him since he was a week
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 115 
 
 old,' said his lordship, snapping and twinkling, 
 ' and I may take leave to tell the Court that I 
 don't know a worthier fellow in his station 
 anywhere.' 
 
 'Thank you, my lord. I need trouble 
 you no further.' 
 
 Then came Sir Ferdinand, equally em- 
 phatic, and then came Parson Heathcote. 
 
 ' You officiated at the prisoner's marriage 
 eight weeks ago. Doctor Heathcote .^ ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' You have known him long ? ' 
 
 ' From his infancy.' 
 
 'Had you had even a suspicion of his 
 guilt in this matter, would you have con- 
 sented to officiate at his wedding ? ' 
 
 ' Assuredly not.' 
 
 ' You have known the prisoner's wife from 
 infancy, I believe ? ' 
 
 ' That is so,' returned Heathcote, seizing 
 at the opportunity, ' and I know her to be 
 worthy of her husband. A most excellent 
 and virtuous young woman.' 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 Parson Heath cote spoke as warmly in the 
 prisoner's favour as his two predecessors, 
 and there the case closed. Ireland declined 
 to reply on the defence, and the judge 
 summed up : violent antipathy — open tres- 
 pass — actual violence on the part of the 
 prisoner. Those were the heads of his dis- 
 course. His monotonous, dry voice fell on 
 Mary's heart like the taps of a hammer. The 
 summing up was dead against the prisoner, 
 and Heydon Hay, stolidly assembled in the 
 galleries, sat with open mouths and stared. 
 The jury retired for a minute or two only, 
 but the pause seemed dreadful and ominous. 
 They returned with a verdict of ' Guilty,' and 
 a strong recommendation to mercy. But Mr. 
 Justice Wormould was not in a merciful 
 humour. The sentence he delivered was 
 one of seven years' penal servitude beyond 
 the seas. 
 
 ' But, my lord,' shrieked Mary, rising in 
 her place, ' he's innocent ! Indeed, indeed, 
 my lord, he's innocent ! '
 
 TIME'S REVEyOES 117 
 
 'Shame!' said one gruff voice in the 
 gallery, in the long-drawn midland accent, 
 and all Heydon Hay there assembled took 
 up the cry. 
 
 ' Clear the court,' said Mr. Justice Wor- 
 mould.
 
 Ii8 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 
 Number 212 toiled, mattock in hand, under 
 a blistering sun. Thirt}'- and nine fellow- 
 convicts toiled about liim with pick and spade. 
 A forest of eucalypt closed in the band on all 
 sides save where, in front and rear, a straight 
 clear track, some eighteen feet in width, had 
 been newly cut through its hitherto pathless 
 solitudes. In the rear, the track was of bare 
 brown earth ; in the front it was marked for 
 a mile by the stumps of felled trees. Where 
 the convict gang was now working the land 
 undulated gently upwards, and the road was 
 trenched deep in the earth. The men sweated 
 doggedly at their task. A warder overhead 
 sat upon a tree-stump, smoking a well- 
 blacked clay and nursing a rifle on his 
 knees. He looked with a lazy want of interest
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 119 
 
 at the men below him, and bhnked now and 
 again in the sleepy sunlight. Two comrades, 
 habited hke himself, and each, hke himself, 
 armed with a rifle, lounged in rear of the 
 gang, and occasionally exchanged a languid 
 word or two. A labour-master, carrying a 
 thick rattan, sat and watched the toilers, and 
 now and again gave an order, which was never 
 issued without a curse to emphasize authority. 
 Here and there he emphasized authority by a 
 stinging cut of the rattan ; but the weather 
 was altogether too idle for such exercise, and 
 for the most j)art the members of the gang 
 were allowed to work in such peace as they 
 could command. It is quite possible that, 
 years ago, well clothed, and accepted members 
 of a civilised community, they might have 
 passed muster in comparison with any average 
 crowd of their own numbers ; but as they bent 
 to their task there, close-cropped and in prison 
 garb, with the history of many months of 
 bestial tyranny behind them, they seemed 
 degraded from the human standard.
 
 120 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 Whatever distaste for labour might ani- 
 mate his fellows, Number 212 went at the 
 task before him with a will. He seemed to 
 put the whole energy of his body into every 
 stroke of the mattock. He might, indeed, 
 judging from the fever with which he worked, 
 have been wreaking a hoarded vengeance on 
 something he hated. 
 
 ' Two-one-two,' said the labour-master, 
 ' keep your temper.' 
 
 Number 212 said nothing. He had been 
 there but a week or two, but he had seen 
 enough to teach him that silence and implicit 
 obedience to every whim of the petty tyrant 
 who commanded were his best resource. 
 Even these had not availed him always, and 
 his heart was in a constant riot of wrath and 
 anguish. He recalled this now, as he had 
 done a thousand times before, and went on 
 with his work in a quieter fashion. 
 
 A mounted man came slowly riding along 
 the new-made road with a rifle slung over his 
 shoulder. He paused to pass the time of day
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 121 
 
 with the two warders, and then moved on to 
 the labour-master, to whom he handed a 
 folded slip of paper, drawn from between the 
 breast buttons of his tunic. 
 
 ' Ail right,' said the man, having glanced 
 at it. ' Two-one-two, you're wanted.' 
 
 Number 212 let fall his mattock, and 
 turned, wiping the perspiration from his brow 
 with the back of his sun-tanned hand. 
 
 ' j\Iarcli in front,' said the man on horse- 
 back. ' This is a new hand, ain't he, 
 Jackson ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the man addressed, stuffing the 
 message he had received into a trousers 
 pocket. 'We've had him a week or two.' 
 
 ' That's all right,' said tbe mounted man. 
 ' Then it's only fair to tell him what he's got 
 to expect if he tries to get away. Look here, 
 you ! March in front, and keep the middle of 
 the road. Make a move to one side of the 
 track or the other, and I shall have to put a 
 bullet into you. You understand that, eh ? 
 Very well, then. Jim along.'
 
 122 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 He was a good-looking fellow, and his tone 
 was by no means so truculent as his speech. 
 He even seemed to find a touch of humour in 
 the situation, for, as he drew over his head 
 the band from which his rifle was suspended, 
 he laughed quite genially. 
 
 Number 212, without question or remark, 
 obeyed instructions, and the man on 
 horseback followed, nursing his weapon on 
 the bow of his saddle, and now and again 
 breaking into a tuneful whistle. The con- 
 vict plodded on doggedly, with bent head, 
 and looked neither to the right nor to the 
 left. 
 
 A quarter of an hour brought him and his 
 armed escort out of the bush and in sight of 
 the summer sea, which glittered like one huge 
 sapphire. To the right rose a mountain, and 
 at its foot, half a mile away, was clustered a 
 small congregation of houses, most of which 
 were of insignificant proportions. One build- 
 ing, however, was of considerable size, a 
 gloomy, frowning barrack, and another, not
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 123 
 
 far removed from it, had some pretension to 
 style. 
 
 'Government House,' said tlie escort, 
 laconically, and the convict, obeying this 
 brief injunction, went on still with bent head 
 across the open ground. A sentry paced to 
 and fro before the building they approached, 
 and, as they drew near, a gentleman, followed 
 by a mounted escort of half-a-dozen, rode up 
 to the door, and was saluted by the sentry. 
 The man in chargfe of No. 212 drew himself 
 up in the saddle and saluted also. 
 
 ' This is the man, sir,' he said, indicating 
 his charge. 
 
 The gentleman thus addressed bent a 
 scrutinising look on the convict, but Xo. 212 
 still drooped his dogged head, and kept his 
 eyes fixed upon the ground. 
 
 ' Take him into the hall,' said the Go- 
 vernor, ' and bring him to me when I ring.' 
 
 The escort dismounted, hitched his horse 
 to the white-painted palisade, and ushered his 
 charo'e into the vestibule of the house. The
 
 124 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 Governor passed them a minute later with 
 another keen look at the convict, and entered 
 a side room. After a pause of about ten 
 minutes, a table gong sounded sharply, and 
 with an imperious note. 
 
 ' That's for you,' said the escort. ' Come 
 along.' 
 
 They entered, and saw the Governor 
 seated at a desk overspread with papers. 
 He had put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses 
 for reading, but laid them aside as the two 
 men confronted him. 
 
 'You may come back again when I call 
 you,' he said, addressing the escort. 
 
 The man left the room, and closed the 
 door behind him. 
 
 ' Your name ? ' said the Governor. 
 
 ' Thomas Barton.' 
 
 The Governor, toying with his grizzled 
 moustache, surveyed him in silence for a 
 moment. 
 
 ' What is the term of your sentence ? ' 
 
 ' Seven years.'
 
 TIMES RE VERGES 12 
 
 ' How long to run ? ' 
 
 ' Over ^\e.' 
 
 ' Poaching afiray, I think r ' 
 
 ' That was the charge, sir/ 
 
 ' You protest your innocence, I beheve ? ' 
 
 ' I do, sir.' 
 
 The convict raised his head for the tirst 
 time, and looked his questioner firmly in the 
 face. As he stood thus erect, neither the 
 convict crop nor the convict garb, nor both 
 together, could disguise the manliness of his 
 aspect. His big grey eyes were at once 
 wrathful and despairing, and his hps were set 
 firm. The expression of his face was that of 
 revolt bound strongly down, and the man was 
 less prepossessing to look at by far than he 
 would have been had he been free and 
 happy. 
 
 ' That will do for the present,' said the 
 Governor, and, touching the gong anew, he 
 gave orders for the temporary disposal of 
 Number 212. 
 
 ' Take this man to Horton, with instruc-
 
 126 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 tions that he is to be employed about the 
 place.' 
 
 The prisoner, wondering what all this 
 might portend, preceded his guard once more, 
 and was marched from the house into an 
 inclosure behind it. This space was still in 
 a ragged and inchoate condition, but it was 
 obvious at the first glance that it was being 
 laid out as a garden. Half-a-dozen men in 
 convict garb were silently at work in it, and 
 a warder was watching over them. 
 
 ' Here's a new recruit for you,' said the 
 escort. ' The Governor sends his respect- 
 ful compliments, and will you be so good as 
 to find a berth for him.' 
 
 ' All right,' returned the warder, and with 
 this brief induction, Number 212 was set to 
 work on the making of the Governor's garden. 
 The toil was easier here, and there was no 
 rattan in evidence. The recruit looked at his 
 new companions from time to time, and 
 thought better of them than of the ferocious 
 and miserable crowd he had so lately quitted.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 127 
 
 A clock in the cupola of the house struck the 
 hour of one. The men ceased to work, and 
 moved to a little shed in one corner of the 
 inclosure. The interior of this building was 
 furnished with a rough table of split string- 
 bark. A rude bench stood on either side the 
 table, on which was set a pannikin containing 
 a savoury mess of boiled meat and vege- 
 tables. There were tin plates ranged around 
 this central dish, and each plate was flanked 
 by a two-pronged fork and a spoon. The 
 men took their places at the table, and the 
 eldest of them apportioned the contents of 
 the dish. They ate in silence for the most 
 part, though now and then a word was ex- 
 changed. After nearly two years of prison 
 fare the change of diet was grateful to 
 Number 212, and he ate with honest appetite, 
 wonderino^ meanwhile what had brouo-ht 
 about this change in his position, and whether 
 it might be intended to be permanent. 
 
 The meal over, the men went back to 
 work. The warder exercised a general
 
 128 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 supervision, but there was no stick, no 
 cursing, no bullying — and a sense of balm 
 and rest began to fall already on Barton's 
 heart. Before nightfall another meal was 
 served, and an hour later the garden-makers 
 were marched to the jail, and there once more 
 surrendered to discipline. Tom spent half 
 the night awake, betwixt hope and fear, and 
 in the morning he was half wild with 
 anxiety to know whether he would be sent 
 back to his former position, or be again in- 
 stalled in the new. In due time his fears 
 were banished, and he found himself once 
 more employed in the garden. This went on, 
 and the peace of it, the heart's repose of it, 
 were beyond all words. 
 
 The preliminary year of prison at home 
 had been terrible enough, but from the hour 
 when the convict ship had sailed, bearing 
 him as a portion of its awful freight, his life 
 had been one long-drawn horror. Cooped in 
 with the human offscourings of Great Britain, 
 under a rule which was made by its own
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 129 
 
 weakness harsli and tyrannous ; dinned with 
 blasphemy and soiled with unspeakable 
 ribaldries ; bereft of wife, and home, and 
 liberty ; forgotten, or so it seemed, by 
 Heaven ; abandoned, with no ill-deserving of 
 his own, to a fate so terrible that a writer of 
 to-day dares not expose the details of its 
 misery, he had hardened himself to a strong 
 despair, and with his own thoughts burning 
 in him night and day like hve coals, had 
 striven to open his heart neither to God nor 
 man. The mere absence of tyrannous abuse 
 was a blessing in itself, the unforced and 
 willingly rendered service was a welcome 
 relief from brooding thoughts. He had 
 known that he was growing downwards, 
 brutCAvards ; but after three days of this new 
 service he began to feel as if he might one 
 day be a man again. 
 
 He had been an enthusiastic gardener in 
 the old days at home, and he had a natural 
 taste and talent in that direction. The 
 quality came out here, almost insensibly to 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 himself, and he found himself set to the work 
 in which he took most interest. He was 
 engaged one day at the side of the house 
 near the white-painted front railings when the 
 Governor, who had been taking a general 
 survey of the garden, came up and stood for 
 a minute or two in silence over him. Two 
 months had now gone by, and the convict, 
 having been intrusted with the laying out 
 and planting of a considerable space, had 
 exercised his own discretion to admirable 
 efiect. There were homely English blossoms 
 flowering there already. The beds were 
 edged with neatly-ranged pebbles from the 
 beach, and the walks were firm and trim. 
 
 ' You have been accustomed to this sort 
 of work ? ' said the Governor. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' said Tom, rising and saluting. 
 His heart had grown tender over the flowers. 
 He had yearned to them as a man might over 
 his children. They took him back to happy 
 days and to Old England. Their very per- 
 fume stole into his being. His tears had
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 131 
 
 fallen on them many and many a time ; and, 
 little by [little, the heartfelt pleasure of his 
 work had drawn him upwards from the 
 depths of that dead sea of bitterness in which 
 Fate had once bade fair to drown him. The 
 Governor hardly knew the man again, the 
 look his face had worn was so completely 
 absent from it now. He was almost cheery 
 again, and he looked at the Governor with 
 brave and honest eyes, his native candour and 
 kindliness shining in them. 
 
 The Governor, exceeding soldierly and 
 resolute in aspect, looked back at him, curl- 
 ing his grey moustache. 
 
 ' You like your employment ? ' 
 
 ' I do, indeed, sir.' 
 
 'Good,' said the Governor, and walked 
 brusquely away. 
 
 Tom turned back to his work mightily 
 cheered. The words had been few, but their 
 tone at least was human, and the man in 
 whose hands his destinies lay had looked at 
 him with something in his glance which he 
 
 K 2
 
 132 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 read into approval. Five years is a long 
 space of time, but it does not make up the 
 whole span of a man's life. Hope began to 
 stir again, courage began to rise, and Tom's 
 heart almost brimmed over. 
 
 Whilst this new, sweet feeling was at its 
 height a servant from the house approached 
 him. Tom knew that the man was a convict, 
 like himself, but his look and dress afforded 
 no indication of that fact. 
 
 ' You're wanted indoors,' he said. ' Come 
 with me.' 
 
 Tom followed obediently, and to his sur- 
 prise found himself standing in the only 
 apartment of the house he had yet seen, 
 before the Governor's lady. She was alone, 
 and was attired in a riding habit, which was 
 just then a httle dusty and disordered. 
 
 ' You are Thomas Barton ? ' she asked. He 
 assented respectfully. ' You were at one time, 
 as I understand, in the service of Sir Ferdi- 
 nand de Blacquaire.' 
 
 He turned pale at the mention of that
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 133 
 
 familiar name. The colour forsook his sun- 
 burnt face, and he began to tremble a little. 
 
 ' Sir Ferdinand and my husband,' pursued 
 the lady, ' are warm friends, and Lady de 
 Blacquaire and I were schoolfellows.' 
 
 She was a tall and graceful woman, 
 scarcely more than half the Governor's age, 
 and her manner had in it a very winning cor- 
 diality and sweetness. 
 
 'The Governor and myself have heard 
 much about you. Sir Ferdinand is positive 
 of your innocence, and recommends you very 
 strongly to our good opinion.* 
 
 Tom Barton had not a word to say for 
 himself, but his face grew paler still, and he 
 trembled more and more. The kind face and 
 voice were strange beyond strangeness to him, 
 and the news that at least one friend was 
 staunch came upon him after this long lapse 
 of time with an almost bewildering force. 
 
 'You may take it for granted, Barton,' 
 said the lady, ' that so long as your conduct 
 justifies Sir Ferdinand's belief, you will not be
 
 134 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 treated with severity. You will be kept in 
 your present position, but you will be allowed 
 to change your dress and will have quarters 
 in the house.' 
 
 'Thank you, my lady,' said Tom, in a 
 quivering voice, ' but ' 
 
 He could go no further. 
 
 ' But what ? ' 
 
 ' Might I, my lady, might I be allowed to 
 
 write home, and — tell 'em — Heaven has ' 
 
 Again he paused, mistrusting his own voice. 
 
 ' Yes,' she replied, ' I think I may answer 
 for that.' 
 
 He managed to speak a broken word or 
 two of thanks. 
 
 'Barton,' said the Governor's lady, with 
 some severity, ' you must control yourself.' 
 
 ' Yes, my lady.' 
 
 ' You have something to learn which may 
 call for all your fortitude. I expect you to 
 behave like a man.' 
 
 ' Yes, my lady.' 
 
 ' A ship has arrived to-day from England.*
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 135 
 
 'A ship, my lady?' 
 
 'Be brave, Barton.' For some reason Her 
 own voice shook a httle. ' I expect you to 
 be firm. Lady de Blacquaire has recom- 
 mended a domestic to me, and she is here.' 
 
 ' Here ? ' He was hke a dead man 
 struggling back to hfe, uncertain of the 
 sounds and sights about him, but full of a 
 bewildered awe. 
 
 'You are sure you can control yourself, 
 Barton ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes, yes ; oh, yes.' 
 
 'Wait here.' 
 
 She passed swiftly from the room, and 
 the convict stood palpitating and wondering 
 with a heart that beat so it seemed hke to 
 burst his breast. He heard the rustle of a 
 dress, and thought she had returned. There 
 was a second's silence, and then a voice spoke. 
 
 ' Tom, Tom, my love, my dear, my 
 husband ! ' 
 
 He turned with a wild cry, and his wife 
 fell fainting in his arms.
 
 136 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 CHAPTER YIII 
 
 Circumstances alter cases. If Tom Barton 
 had been told a mere two years ago that he 
 could be happy as a convict and m a half- 
 menial employment, he would have thought 
 his informant a fool or a madman. But to 
 be free from daily insult and daily blows, 
 which were more wounding to the spirit than 
 the body, to be free of the horrible and de- 
 grading companionship of the frightful herd 
 he had been compelled to live with, to have 
 his true wife back again, to taste hourly the 
 sympathy of her affection, and to enjoy her 
 unshaken faith in him, was like Heaven itself. 
 The days ran by swiftly. No work Avas too 
 hard, no hour too long. With one or two 
 exceptions, all the people who made up the 
 Governor's household were in the same plight
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 137 
 
 as himself. The cook was a veritable cordon 
 bleu, but had been expatriated for larceny on 
 a largish scale. The head-groom had been a 
 veterinary surgeon who, in a moment of 
 temptation, had signed somebody else's name 
 to a cheque. The household swarmed with 
 thieves, and yet nothing was ever stolen. The 
 penalty was too well known, and lay too 
 near. The burned wronofdoer dreaded the 
 fire, and was too newly escaped from its 
 torments to be ambitious to 9:0 back acjain. 
 The Governor's ' own ' man had accompanied 
 his master of his own free will, but he took no 
 airs with his fellow-servants. It was normal 
 to be surrounded by scoundrels, and a man of 
 social turn cannot easily put himself away 
 altogether from intercourse with his fellow- 
 beings. Even Mr. Dogdyke, the Governor's 
 private secretary, a gentleman of unimpeach- 
 able character and record, was as civil and 
 condescending as he would have been in an 
 ordinary household. 
 
 ^Ir. Dogdyke was a man of small stature,
 
 138 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 dapper, alert, and talkative. He had a re- 
 markably fine growth of naturally curling red 
 hair, which he oiled assiduously with a view 
 of darkening its original colour, and on either 
 cheek he wore a little scrap of fiery red 
 whisker. He was always neat and trim, and 
 though one of the most talkative men under 
 the sun, he never, by any chance, brought 
 anything he might have to say to a finish. 
 The climate of Van Diemen's Land was a 
 theme on which Mr. Dogdyke could always 
 rise to a modified enthusiasm, and if anybody 
 said that it was wholesome, he would answer 
 and say that it was certainly remarkable for 
 its ah — , and would smile and rub his hands 
 by way of filling in his appreciation of its 
 quality. If anybody praised its settled 
 character he would respond that it was much 
 more trustworthy than the climate in the 
 United ah — , and it was felt that his abstention 
 from the utterance of the word ' kingdom ' 
 was the natural and delicate expression of a 
 mind which desired not to seem too positive.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 139 
 
 He had a sliarp nose, which he stuck without 
 ceasing into the afiairs of other people, and 
 his sly httle brown eyes kept a constant out- 
 look. 
 
 Mr. Dogdyke was by nature a private 
 inquiry agent. He never engaged himself 
 professionally in that capacity, but he could 
 not help finding out things. He could not 
 refrain from peeping and peering into the 
 business of any people with whom he came in 
 contact ; and though, at this period of his 
 existence, Hobart Town afforded the poorest 
 sort of ground for the exercise of his peculiar 
 talent, he never allowed it to rust for want of 
 use. In spite of his garrulity and his taste 
 for knowledge he was nothing of a gossip in 
 the scandalous sense, but kept the result of 
 all his httle inquisitions to himself with a 
 remarkable discretion. 
 
 Mr. Dogdyke was married to a young 
 Englishwoman who was vaguely rumoured to 
 have considerable expectations at home, and 
 the pair lived in a four-roomed house of one
 
 140 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 story, not far from headquarters. Mrs. Dog- 
 dyke, wlio was a very pretty little person, was 
 universally admired and respected, and was 
 sometimes to be seen at Government House. 
 The range of society was not large, and the 
 good little woman's charm of manner and 
 nature reflected favourably upon her husband, 
 and made his position seem much more con- 
 siderable than it would have been without her 
 influence. 
 
 The Governor's secretary, tripping brightly 
 to and from his daily duties, was always 
 bubbling over with amiable speech, which he 
 was ready to bestow on anybody. Eight or 
 nine hours were daily spent in the perform- 
 ance of his clerical duties, and it was im- 
 possible for him to be garrulous with the 
 Governor, of whom he stood in considerable 
 dread. He had always a friendly greeting for 
 Tom Barton, and a sort of acquaintanceship 
 was struck up between them. The Governor's 
 secretary was, of course, a personage, and 
 Barton permitted himself no very great in-
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 141 
 
 timacy with him. though Mr. Dogdyke was 
 ready to be, so far as conversation went, 
 on terms of hail-fellow-well-met with every- 
 body. 
 
 Mr. Dogdyke's office overlooked the garden, 
 of which, by this time, Tom had the complete 
 direction and control. Sometimes, on sunny, 
 idle days, the secretary would break from his 
 labours, and, leaning forward with his arms 
 upon the window-sill, would spend a few 
 minutes in conversation, burning, as usual, to 
 find out everything discoverable about his 
 new acquaintance. He got little out of Tom 
 Barton, but he knew from other quarters that 
 Tom was married, and pretty often saw his 
 wife about the house. He had no more 
 reason to wish to be aware of Barton's ante- 
 cedents than of those of any other man in 
 the world, but, all the same, he wanted to 
 know, and, faihng Tom, he tried to pump 
 Tom's wife. She proving little more acces- 
 sible than her husband, and such scattered 
 little hints of their history as he had gathered
 
 142 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 growing more and more provocative ol 
 curiosity, he adopted another method. 
 
 Mrs. Dogdyke was all simplicity and kind- 
 ness, and, though married to the Governor's 
 secretary, had no pride. Female society of 
 the respectable, or even of the tolerable, sort 
 was hardly anywhere to be found, and when 
 Mr. Dogdyke became warm in his praises of 
 Mrs. Barton's modesty, good sense, and gentle- 
 ness of character, the little woman began to 
 take a womanly interest in her. It was not 
 long before Mary and Mrs. Dogdyke were on 
 terms of something very like friendship. 
 Mrs. Barton had always a spare hour or two 
 in the evening, and it came to pass that a 
 good deal of this time was spent with Mrs. 
 Dogdyke, who took an unaffected liking for 
 her, and no more thought of patronising her 
 than a canary would think of patronising a 
 dove. Things went on very agreeably in this 
 fashion until Mr. Dogdyke knew the history 
 of the convict and his wife pretty nearly as 
 well as his own. By this time he was wilhng
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 143 
 
 to cool, but his wife and Mrs. Barton con- 
 tinued to see as much of each other as 
 before. 
 
 Mr. Dogdyke sat one day at his window, 
 sniflfing with satisfaction the flowery odour 
 of the garden, when Tom came by, trundhng 
 a wheelbarrow full of tools. He was attired 
 in his ordinary working dress of moleskin 
 trousers and flannel shirt, and, the hideous 
 convict garb abandoned, his hair allowed to 
 assume its natural growth, and a manly beard 
 on lip, cheeks, and chin, he looked as httle 
 like a convict as any man might wish. 
 
 * Barton,' said Mr. Dogdyke, ' a word 
 with ' 
 
 ' By all means, ]\Ir. Dogdyke,' said Tom, 
 relaxing his hold on the handles of the 
 barrow, and making a straight back for a 
 moment. 
 
 ' There's a ship's crew ashore to-day, and 
 the men are just a trifle ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Tom ; ' they are a bit rough.* 
 
 'Your wife, Barton,' said Mr. Dogdyke,
 
 144 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 'Las promised to spend an hour or two with 
 Mrs. Dogdyke this evening, and I think it 
 would be a wise precaution on your part to 
 see her there, and to bring her back later in 
 the ' 
 
 ' In the evening, sir,' said Tom. 
 
 ' Precisely,' said Mr. Dogdyke. ' I said so 
 You might call for her at nine o'clock.' 
 
 ' Thank you, sir, I will.' 
 
 ' That is right, Barton,' said Mr. Dogdyke. 
 ' That will do.' 
 
 Tom went off with his barrow, and would 
 have thought no more about the matter till 
 the time came, but for the wild horseplay of a 
 handful of Jack Tars, who were, even in the 
 early afternoon, well on their way to that 
 bourn of intoxication which was their un- 
 faihng haven in those days on shore. 
 
 Of all the late reliefs which had come to 
 him there was none more delightful than the 
 knowledge that his wife was not debarred 
 from the society of good and gentle women ; 
 and thoudi he himself was, of course, ex-
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 145 
 
 eluded from the Docfdyke halls, he Tvas none 
 the less pleased and proud m the fact that his 
 wife was admitted. Things were quiet enough 
 when he escorted Mary on her visit, except 
 for an occasional roar from a grog shanty ; 
 and when, punctual to time, he left the 
 Governor's house to escort Mary home again, 
 even that sign of dissipation was absent for 
 the moment. The night was dark, and the 
 stars, bright as they were, illumined it but 
 faintly. 
 
 A sohtary oil lamp, little more efficacious 
 than a glowworm, burned dimly half-way 
 between Government House and the es- 
 tablishment of Mr. Dogdyke. Just beyond 
 the lamp, as Tom sauntered comfortably 
 along, there rose a scream. He knew the 
 voice for that of his wife, and darted forward. 
 A minute later he saw her struGfoiinor in the 
 embraces of a burly fellow. He struck out 
 at the man at once, and landed so viciously 
 on his ribs that he turned half-way round 
 with a gasp and stood for a second helpless. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 Kecovering himself, he made for his assailant, 
 and came on like a man who knew his 
 business and was bent on doing it. But, in 
 Tom Barton's days in mid-England, the noble 
 art of self-defence was the most popular of 
 exercises, and Tom was no novice at the 
 game. There was no guarding against the 
 other's rush, but he slipped his head aside, 
 snakelike, escaping with a grazed ear, and 
 countered, straight and heavy, with his left. 
 The man staggered, Tom's right went in, and 
 Mrs. Barton's too precipitate admirer lay on 
 his back, and, in answer to Tom's invitation, 
 definitely refused to get up again. He lay 
 there, pouring out imprecations on his con- 
 queror, unt Tom seized him by his neck- 
 cloth and dragged him io}ns> feet. 
 
 'You foul-mouthed scoundrel,' said Bar- 
 ton, ' how dare you use that language in the 
 hearing of a decent woman ? Say that again, 
 or anything like it, and I'll choke the life out 
 of you. Come to the lamp, and let me have 
 a look at you.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 147 
 
 There was a momentary scuffle, but Tom's 
 blood was up, and he felt as strong as two 
 men. The fellow was cowed by the punish- 
 ment he had already received, and Barton's 
 unrelenting iron grip intimidated him still 
 further. He ended the brief struggle by 
 complete surrender. 
 
 ' Let him go, Tom,' said Mary. ' Let him 
 go. I'm not a bit hurt, and you've punished 
 him enough already.' 
 
 ' I shan't hurt him any more,' said Tom, 
 with a savage little laugh. ' I only want to 
 have a look at him.' 
 
 He brought his man to the lamp, and 
 turned his face full into its feeble light. 
 
 ' Oh, it's you, is it ? ' he said grimly, 
 between his teeth. 
 
 It was the bullying labour-master of nine 
 months ago. 
 
 'Yes, it's me,' said the fellow, sullenly, 
 ' and it's you, too, seemin'ly.' 
 
 ' Oh, you remember me, do you ? ' said 
 Barton. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 TIME'S REVENGES c 
 
 It was an unlucky speech, but his blood 
 was boiling now anew, and he had double 
 cause for it. The man's face brought before 
 him the memory of daily and hourly outrage. 
 He had schooled himself to endure all this, in 
 his dogged determination that no act of his 
 own should give a colour of justice to his 
 miseries. 
 
 The man's face changed from its look of 
 sullen rage to one of keen inquiry. Until 
 that moment Tom's beard had disguised him, 
 but now his glance pierced beyond it and he 
 reconstructed the face he knew. 
 
 'All right, two-one-two. I'll make you 
 smart for this.' 
 
 ' You will .? ' said Tom. ' And how .? ' 
 
 'I'll show you how,' said the labour- 
 master. ' I'll have you back under my hands 
 again, my friend, mind that.' 
 
 ' Thank you for the warning,' said Tom. 
 
 ' Oh, you've nothing to thank me for yet,' 
 returned the other. 
 
 ' But I have, though,' Tom answered.
 
 TIME-'S REVENGES 14c 
 
 ' You see if I h^iven't. We'll have this out 
 before the Governor. Come along, Mr. 
 Bostock.' 
 
 ' Tom,' cried Mary, ' let him go. Don't 
 take a thing like that before the Governor. 
 What will my lady think of me ? Don't do 
 it, Tom.' 
 
 ' Do you think, my dear,' said Tom, keeping 
 a glittering eye on his captive, and holding 
 the same unyielding grip on shirt, neck-cloth, 
 and coat ; 'do you tliink I'm going to let this 
 poisonous snake set his mates on to take 
 away my character, or plague me into mad- 
 ness? No, no, my dear. I'm goin' to scotch 
 him, and I'm goin' to do it now. As for 
 what the Governor's lady will think about 
 you, you needn't worry, I'm sure. She knows 
 you well enough by this time.' 
 
 With that there was a little further 
 scuffle, for Bostock was naturally reluctant 
 to face authority under the circumstances ; 
 but Barton was the stronger, and he had to 
 yield.
 
 ISO TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 * Go in, Mary,' said Tom, as they reached 
 the door of the house, ' and let your mistress 
 know what's happened. Tell her I've got this 
 fellow here.' 
 
 Mary obeyed, and her mistress, hearing 
 the news, ran at once to the supreme 
 authority, and told the story hot with anger. 
 Down strode the Governor, twirling his 
 moustache with both hands, and sternly 
 ordered the offender to enter. He shrank 
 in with a deadly glance at Barton, who 
 followed close at his heels. 
 
 Tom told his story briefly. 
 
 ' You struck me first,' said Bostock/ 
 
 ' Of course I did,' said Tom. 
 
 ' What have you to say ? ' asked the 
 Governor, when the charge was made. The 
 man had nothing to say, but he smeared 
 the blood from his face with a red cotton 
 handkerchief, and again looked meaningly at 
 his captor. 
 
 'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Barton. 
 ' I wouldn't have brought this man here at
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 151 
 
 all, but he told me he'd have me back under 
 his charge. You'll excuse my boldness, sir, 
 but the officers all hang together. They can't 
 help it, sir. They're obHged to do it. If one 
 of them has a grudge against a joor fellow, 
 all the rest are down on him.' 
 
 'Whether you go back or not,' said the 
 Governor, ' depends entirely on your own 
 conduct. You may go. Barton.' 
 Tom withdrew. 
 'And so,' said the Governor, with his 
 elbows on the table before him, ' you're going 
 to have Number 212 back again, are you ? ' 
 The man made no answer. ' I am compelled, 
 pursued the Governor, • to support my officers 
 of every grade in the performance of their 
 duty, and I'll do it ; but you will understand, 
 if you please, that nobody's fate is in your 
 keeping. I will have it known that my wife's 
 domestics are safe from insult or molestation, 
 and I have a mind to order you a round six 
 dozen for this night's work. Mind you, sir, 
 I see much of which I think it worth while
 
 152- TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 to take no official notice. Take any steps 
 to annoy the man who has so deservedly 
 chastised you to-night, and I dismiss you from 
 your post. You understand ? ' 
 
 The man saluted clumsily and murmured 
 an inarticulate something. 
 
 'You understand?' cried the colonel, 
 bringing his palm down heavily on the desk 
 before him. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' rapped out Bostock. ' Quite, sir.' 
 ' That will do. Eight about face. March.' 
 Bostock went to his own quarters, breath- 
 ing threats and slaughter. His aspect created 
 some amusement among his mates, but they 
 found him little disposed to join in their 
 gaieties when he had so far swallowed his 
 rage and mortification that he could tell the 
 tale. He told it, and, of course, as a person 
 of professed gallantry, slandered the woman 
 who had repelled him. 
 
 ' She had no objections,' said the scoundrel. 
 * She wouldn't ha' squealed if she hadn't seen 
 her husband coming.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 153 
 
 ' Such a conquering dog you are," said 
 one of his pals. * I shouldn't wonder if she's 
 dying for you. With a head like that on 
 you too I ' 
 
 To tell the truth, none of 3Jj:. Bostock's 
 compeers had any especial sympathy for him 
 in his misfortune, but on the point of esj:>nt 
 de corps they were all agreed. If any con- 
 vict, whether petted by the Governor or 
 otherwise, began to assert his independence 
 in this fashion it was time to set him down, 
 and it was fully understood that some 
 attempt should be made in that direction. 
 The men were not inliuman by nature, but 
 there is no custom in the world which grows 
 like that of cruelty ; and in those vile days, 
 dead and buried now, thank God, for ever, 
 a convict, to the average official heart, was 
 beyond the pale of pity.
 
 €54 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 CHAPTEE IX 
 
 Things went smoothly with the Bartons, 
 and for the most part uneventfully, for the 
 space of two years. The petty ^oflScials did 
 their utmost, but with every week that passed 
 the absolute integrity of man and wife stood 
 more clearly revealed, and they were fixed 
 more firmly in the esteem, and even the 
 affections, of their protectors. So small spite 
 raged furiously without effect, and the enmity 
 of Mr. Bostock imagined a vain thing. With- 
 in a week of the second anniversary of Mary's 
 arrival at Hobart she presented her husband 
 with a son. The new arrival was lusty and 
 vigorous from the first, and was a source of 
 tender envy to Mary's mistress, who, though 
 blessed with the maternal instinct in full 
 measure, was childless.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 155 
 
 The boy was christened Michael, in 
 memory of Mary's father, and Hawthorne, in 
 memory of Tom's mother — ^Michael Haw- 
 thorne Barton. Whilst he lay crowing in his 
 cradle there came a letter from England to 
 his mother, announcing that an aunt of 
 Mary's had died, leaving instructions to the 
 effect that the small property on which she 
 had lived since her husband's death should 
 be immediately realised, and the proceeds 
 remitted to her niece. The old lady had 
 resided at Beacon Hargate, and the only 
 person connected with the law of whom she 
 had any personal knowledge was that Mr. 
 Denton who had defended her niece's husband 
 on his trial. Without consulting him she 
 had made him her sole executor, and this 
 fact had restored Tom and his fate to the 
 barrister's memory. 
 
 The deceased aunt had no other relative 
 than her niece, and had indicated her last 
 wishes in a quaintly worded letter to Parson 
 Heathcote. Denton had accepted the charge
 
 156 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 thus thrust upon him, had fulfilled his duties, 
 handing the money realised by the sale of 
 the estate to a firm of shipping agents, and 
 inclosing to Mrs. Barton a draft for the 
 amount, payable by the firm at Hobart. The 
 value of the draft approached very nearly 
 the sum of fifteen hundred pounds, and 
 Denton's letter inclosing it ran thus. (I omit 
 the business detail explained already.) 
 
 ' You will find the draft inclosed. If you 
 should make up your minds to return to 
 England when your husband is set at liberty, 
 you will find that old friends have not for- 
 gotten you. Lady de Blacquaire, whom 
 I have met within the last few years pretty 
 frequently, is still as warmly attached to you 
 as ever, and as anxious to befriend you. Sir 
 Ferdinand has been unremitting in his en- 
 deavours to secure a remission of your 
 husband's sentence, and still believes most 
 profoundly in his innocence, as I have always 
 done. 
 
 * Unfortunately, a Government is now in
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 157 
 
 power from wliicli Sir Ferdinand naturally 
 expects nothing. Should his own party 
 secure office at the next election he will have 
 influence, and you may be certain that he 
 will use it to the full. For my own part 
 I have only to add that if at any time I can 
 in any way be of service to you, you need be 
 in no fear of taxing me. I believe your 
 husband to be an extremely ill-used man, and 
 I should not easily express my sense of your 
 own courage and devotion. I beg you not 
 to accept anything I have said as being 
 merely complimentary. If you should ever 
 have need of any help of mine in any 
 direction, you may ask for it with the 
 certainty that it ^ill be heartily rendered. 
 I hear great things of the soil and chmate of 
 Van Diemen's Land, and of the prices at 
 which land may be purchased there. Barton 
 is a practical farmer, and will know how 
 far these statements are to be rehed on. 
 You may possibly make up your minds to 
 remain where you are ; but in any case
 
 158 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 you may rely upon tlie friendship and good 
 wishes of all who knew you both in Eng- 
 land,' 
 
 Mary ran straight to the garden with this 
 letter and its inclosure, and placed them both 
 in her husband's hands. He read the letter 
 with a swelling heart, and handed it back to 
 her in silence. 
 
 ' Nothing to say, dear ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' Too much to say to be able to say it/ 
 Tom answered. 
 
 ' Shall I show it to my lady ? ' asked 
 Mary. 
 
 ' Yes, dear,' he answered. ' The Governor 
 might keep the money for you. There's light 
 ahead ! Only three more years in front of us> 
 and we're not unhappy.' 
 
 ' Unhappy,' she echoed. ' If you were 
 only free, Tom, there'd be no happier people 
 in the world.' 
 
 ' That's a good man,' said Tom, pointing 
 to the letter. 
 
 ' My dear,' she answered, ' there are plenty
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 159 
 
 of good people in the world, and the best of 
 them all belongs to me.' 
 
 'No,' said Tom, ' to me.' 
 
 They were in sight of a whole row of 
 windows, and no endearments were possible. 
 He laid a hand upon her shoulder as he 
 spoke, and then turned back to his work 
 again. Mary stood smiling for a minute, and 
 then went back to the house and sought her 
 mistress. 
 
 'Will you be kind enough to read this, 
 ma'am ? ' she asked. Mrs. Gourlay accepted 
 the letter, and read it through 
 
 ' Leave this with me,' she said. ' I should 
 like to show it to Colonel Gourlay.' 
 
 The Governor was at home to luncheon, 
 and his wife laid the letter quietly before 
 him. 
 
 ' That decides the question,' he said, when 
 he had read it to the end. 
 
 ' What question, dear ? ' 
 
 ' Well, you see,' said the Governor, ' I've 
 been thinking for a month or two past of
 
 i6o TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 giving that poor fellow his papers, and telling 
 him to make a start for himself. Here's land 
 to be had for a song, and with the natural 
 advantages of the country it's out of reason 
 to suppose that it can be kept as a mere 
 convict settlement for ever. There'll be a 
 great people here one of these days, and we 
 shall get no better class of settlers than Barton 
 and his wife.' 
 
 'And this,' said Mrs. Gourlay, touching 
 the i^aper, ' settles the question ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' said the Governor, 'it settles it. 
 You'll be sorry to part with your maid, but 
 I'm thinking alike of the good of the people 
 and the good of the colony.' 
 
 ' And so am I,' the lady answered. ' For 
 her own sake I shall be glad to let her go.' 
 
 The Governor was a man of action, and in 
 a week from the receipt of Denton's letter 
 Tom Barton was virtually a free man. There 
 was no going back to England, and perhaps 
 he turned all the more lovingly to the old 
 countrv on that account. But there was
 
 TIME'S REVENGES i6i 
 
 plenty of work for willing hands to do. He 
 tramped ont thirty miles to examine the land 
 under Mount Madagascar. An English family 
 had already settled there — an elderly farmer, 
 with a wife, two sons, and a daughter. Tom 
 heard excellent accounts of the settler, and 
 the man proved himself by a hearty welcome. 
 The land looked likely to be prosperous, 
 there v/as abundance of water, and in less 
 than a week the liberated convict was at 
 work. 
 
 He bought buikling materials, chartered 
 a waggon, and with his own unaided hands 
 built for himself a three-roomed house of one 
 story, went back to Hobart, purchased there 
 such implements as were at once obtainable 
 and necessary, and solemnly installed himself 
 in his new home \\^th wife and child. All 
 day long and for many a day the sound of his 
 axe awoke the echoes of the forest, and in 
 due time he cleared space for a garden and 
 planted it. It was hard work, but there was 
 hope in it, and as he sat and smoked his pipe 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1 62 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 by his own fireside, he and Mary held long talks 
 together. They decided never to go back to 
 England, bnt to carve out for themselves such 
 fortune as they could in the new country to 
 which the strange vicissitudes of fate had 
 brought them. Labour was scarce and dear, 
 but Barton was now a capitalist, if only a 
 small one, and in the course of time he 
 hired help, and began to get considerable 
 tracts of land in order. 
 
 His sentence had almost expired, and he 
 could already see a life-long competence 
 before him. At first, to his own surprise, 
 he felt himself treated with as much con- 
 sideration as if the convict taint had never 
 rested on him, but by-and-bye he got used to 
 this condition of affairs, and felt himself a 
 man ao^ain. It was his dutv at stated in- 
 tervals to report himself, and it was only on 
 these occasions that his position seemed 
 irksome. The officials whom he encountered 
 made the most of their position and the 
 w^orst of his, but he always controlled his
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 163 
 
 temper resolutely, and gave them no handle 
 for mischief. 
 
 It is a long lane that has no turning, and 
 at last came the blessed day when he had to 
 report himself for the last time. He rode into 
 Hobart for that purpose, make his formal 
 presentation of himself, endured the customary 
 insolence and disdain, and mounted to ride 
 back again. At the extreme limit of the little 
 township he encountered Dogdyke and Mrs. 
 Dogdyke in a diminutive buggy drawn by the 
 small, rugged pony. Mrs. Dogdyke laid her 
 hands upon the reins, and brought the pony 
 to a halt. 
 
 ' I am glad to see you, Mr. Barton,' said 
 the good little woman. ' I have had a letter 
 written for a week, but nobody has been going 
 your way, and I have not known how to send 
 it. Mr. Dogdyke and I are taking the next ship 
 home to England. Mr. Dogdyke's father is 
 dead, and has left liis business to Mr. Dogdyke.' 
 *We are all mortal,' said Mr. Dogdyke, 
 ' and my father, though profoundly respected, 
 
 X 2
 
 i64 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 has been ailing for many years. He lias at 
 last succumbed to the attacks of an insi- 
 dious ' 
 
 ' I should dearly like to say good-bye to 
 Mrs. Barton,' said the little woman, ' but I 
 don't know how I am to get so l^ir. Do you 
 think she could contrive to get to Hobart ? ' 
 
 ' She'd do that, glad and willing,' Tom 
 responded, ' but the child's a bit ailing, some- 
 how. We don't know much about children, 
 neither of us, but the missus thinks he's 
 sickening for something. She'd take it very 
 hard if she missed seeing you, Mrs. Dogdyke. 
 If you'll promise to come over, I'll find the 
 means to get ye there and bring ye back 
 again. We're a bit rough up to now, but 
 you'll find a hearty welcome, and we shall 
 both take it as a kindness if you'll come.' 
 
 ' I'll come with pleasure,' said Mrs. Dog- 
 dyke, 'but I am afraid, Mr. Barton, that I 
 shall have to inflict myself upon you for the 
 night, and I dcn't know if you have room 
 enouo-h.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 165 
 
 ' Eoom in plenty, ma'am,' Tom declared, 
 with heartiness. 'Eoom for ]Mr. Dogdyke 
 too, if he'll come and try pot-luck with us.' 
 
 ' I am afraid,' said Mi\ Dogdyke, ' that the 
 multiphcity of my engagements will prevent 
 me from accepting your flattering ' 
 
 'As you please, sir,' cried Tom. 'We 
 shall be honoured if you can find the time. I 
 know where I can get a buggy. I'll ride back 
 and see about it now, and if Mrs. Dogdyke will 
 be so good as to tell me when. Til come in 
 and fetch her. I can leave my horse here 
 when I come, and ride him back again when 
 I've brought Mrs. Dogdyke home.' 
 
 The matter was so arranged, and the 
 journey was fixed for the morrow. When 
 Tom returned in the morning he found, some- 
 what to his surprise, that Mr. Dogdyke had 
 abandoned his reserve, and was prepared to 
 accompany him. They bowled along quite 
 merrily for some two-thirds of the distance, 
 and were suddenly brought to a standstill by 
 a hoarse voice behind them, which bellowed :
 
 i66 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 * Halt ! ' Tom stood up in the buggy, and 
 turned. They were in the open at this time, 
 and about two hundred yards was labour- 
 master Bostock on horseback, pounding 
 along full speed. He had a brace of warders 
 behind him, and all three were armed. 
 
 ' Why don't you halt when you're 
 ordered?' growled Bostock, checking his 
 horse viciously. 
 
 Tom sat down in silence, his surest way of 
 irritating the other, and his sagest. The two 
 warders came up, and drew rein beside the 
 
 ' D'ye hear ? ' said Bostock. 
 
 ' I hear,' Tom answered. ' What's the 
 matter ? ' 
 
 ' I'll show you what the matter is,' said 
 Bostock. ' Drive on, and give me none of 
 your lip.' 
 
 ' This,' said Mr. Dogdyke, ' is really very 
 peculiar behaviour. May I ask the reason of 
 this extraordinary -' 
 
 ' A man got away last night,' said Bostock,
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 167 
 
 * and this fellow,' with a contemptuous jerk of 
 his thumb towards Tom, ' is suspected of 
 harbouring him.' 
 
 ' Who suspects ? ' asked Tom. 
 
 ' I don't want any of your cheek,' re- 
 turned Bostock. ' You drive on. and take 
 it easy. Don't you sweat my horses any 
 more.' 
 
 ' You'll forgive me for naming this m your 
 presence, IMr. Dogdyke,' said Tom, twinkling 
 with suppressed humour, ' but this is the fel- 
 low I had to give a hidin' to that night my 
 wife was insulted coming from your house. 
 You see he's got some sort of a remembrance 
 of it. It's like enough one of these days I 
 may freshen his mind a bit. Call on me this 
 day three months, will you, Bostock, and then 
 I'll talk t'ye.' 
 
 ' Now, then,' said Bostock, ' are you going 
 to keep us here all day ? ' 
 
 Barton was fulfilling his injunction some- 
 what too Uterally for his fancy. 
 ' ' Set your own pace,' said Tom, * I'll keep it.'
 
 1 68 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ^ This,' declared Bostock, addressing Dog- 
 dyke, ' is the most troublesome convict beast 
 in the whole settlement.' 
 
 ' Mr. Dogdyke/ said Tom, ' I call you to 
 witness that this man is attempting to pro- 
 voke me to a breach of the peace. I shall 
 keep my temper till I can keep it no 
 longer.' 
 
 ' Best keep a still tongue, my man,' said 
 one of Bostock's companions, and Tom, turn- 
 ing angrily in his direction, caught sight of 
 Mrs. Dogdyke's frightened face, and resumed 
 possession of himself. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, ma'am,' he said. 
 ' They shan't get another word out of me.' 
 
 He adhered to that resolve, though the 
 two exhausted a not very abundant faculty 
 of satire in the attempt to draw him out 
 again. The presence of the Dogdykes 
 restrained them a good deal, and they were 
 far from having a free hand. Mr. Bostock 
 in especial found his powers of eloquence 
 curtailed in the presence of a lady. He had
 
 TIME'S REVENGES i6^ 
 
 to suppress a full half of his vocabulary, aud 
 under these conditions felt almost tongue- 
 tied. 
 
 The episode caused but little delay, for 
 the leader of the party set off at a good- 
 round pace again, and Tom kept up with 
 him. 
 
 With the little spite characteristic of him, 
 the fellow rode fastest where the way was 
 roughest ; but Tom was a fairly accomphshed 
 whip, and though Dogdyke trembled and 
 held tight, his wife sat out the journey with a 
 smile. 
 
 'Get out,' said Bostock, when the home- 
 stead was reached. ' Stay there.' 
 
 ' I shall report your conduct, Bostock,' 
 said Dogdyke, who was white with the fears 
 of the last hour, and prodigiously relieved to 
 find himself safe on earth once more. ' I 
 shall report your conduct in the proper 
 quarter.' 
 
 ' As you please,' Bostock answered. ' I 
 know my duty and I shall do it. One of you
 
 170 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 stay outside and look after that fellow. You, 
 Jennings, come with me.' 
 
 Mrs. Barton stood wonderingly at the door, 
 but Tom reassured her in a sentence. 
 
 ' There's nothing the matter, my dear. This 
 fellow pretends to think as I'm a harbouring 
 a runaway convict. He's goin' to search the 
 house. I'm sure he's sweetly welcome.' 
 
 ' I should advise you to watch your valu- 
 ables, madam,' said Mr. Dogdyke, who was 
 now thoroughly on the side of the oppressed. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Tom, with a touch of the old 
 local drawl, ' theer's reason in all things.' 
 
 Bostock and the warder pushed roughly 
 by Mary, and passed into the middle room of 
 the house. 
 
 ' You'll find nothing here, gentlemen,' she 
 said. ' Pray do your duty as quiet as you 
 can. My child's asleep, and he's very ailing 
 just as present.' 
 
 The two ruffians began at once to make 
 an alarming clatter, banging about chairs and 
 table in a transparent pretence of searching
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 171 
 
 for some person who obviously could not be 
 concealed within the room. This done, they 
 burst noisily into one of the side rooms, and 
 finding exactly what they suspected there, 
 made for the other. The mother confronted 
 them at the door. 
 
 ' Gentlemen, please ; please don't make a 
 noise. The child's really very ilh' 
 
 ' Stand on one side,' roared Bostock, and 
 banging the door open he strode into the 
 room. The sleeping child woke with a cry, 
 and the mother, runninsf to him, o-athered him 
 hastily to her breast, wrapped in the shawl 
 which had covered him. She bore him into 
 the open air, and tried to soothe him, but the 
 child only cried the louder. Bostock, his pre- 
 tended search completed, followed her with 
 a grin on his ungainly features. The indig- 
 nant mother turned on him. 
 
 ' You brute ! ' 
 
 His face darkened, and he stared at her 
 for a moment. Luckily for all concerned, he 
 said nothing, but after regarding her in jeer-
 
 172 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ing silence for half-a-minute, turned and 
 mounted his horse. The child shrieked with 
 fright and inward pain, and Mr. Bostock made 
 a grimace as of one who swalloweth verjuice 
 unawares, and waved a protesting hand 
 against it. 
 
 ' For God's sake, some of you,' he cried, 
 ' put a stopper on that convict's brat.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES i73 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 At the very instant at which these brutal 
 words were spoken the child ceased to wail. 
 There was silence for the space of a second 
 only, and yet it seemed long to everybody. 
 The mother turned with a glance so passion- 
 ately, so fierily indignant upon Bostock that 
 he, rough as he was by nature and brutalised 
 by habit, half quailed before her. Barton 
 made a single step forward, and laid a hand 
 upon a hoe which stood near the door of the 
 hut. There would certainly have been mis- 
 chief, and mischief of a serious sort, if one of 
 the mounted warders had not put spur into 
 his horse and brought himself between the 
 angry men, the husband and the insulter. 
 Barton stood glaring for a minute, but threw 
 down the rough and ready weapon he had
 
 174 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 seized, and, turning his back upon the group, 
 entered the hut without a word. Mary- 
 followed him in silence, and Dogdyke, puflSng 
 and blowing with an angry sense of wounded 
 self-importance, stood searching in vain for 
 words. 
 
 From Dogdyke's point of view the outrage 
 was directed against himself. He was not 
 merely a personage in his own estimation, but 
 he was but newly released from the honour- 
 able office of secretary to the Governor, and 
 he was now going home to inherit a large and 
 prosperous business. He was an associate, 
 for the moment at least, of the man who had 
 been thus stigmatised ; his wife had given her 
 friendship and countenance to the wife of the 
 insulted man ; and the worst, of it all was that 
 the calumny was actually justified and un- 
 answerable. 
 
 ' You are a low fellow,' said Mr. Dogdyke, 
 finding tongue at last. ' You are a low black- 
 guard fellow, and I'll make it my duty to 
 report your conduct to the Governor imme-
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 175 
 
 diately on my return to Hobart. There are 
 tilings,' pursued Mr. Dogdyke, waving his 
 hand and assuming an almost oratorical bear- 
 ing, ' which are intolerable to a man of 
 feeling ; there are statements which cannot be 
 denied which would only be publicly made by 
 a person lost to delicacy and all the finer feel- 
 ings of our common human ' 
 
 Mr. Dogdyke's customary failing here beset 
 him, and, in the midst of his impassioned 
 declaration, his voice slid off into an indeter- 
 minate murmur, and the fire of anger ceased 
 to flame. 
 
 ' Leave them to themselves,' said Mrs. 
 Dogdyke. ' Take no notice of them, John ; 
 they are unworthy of it.' 
 
 Bostock jeered as they entered the hut, 
 and he and his fellows rode away together by 
 the track leading to the bush. Their whole 
 object in taking the route they had chosen 
 had been to lay an insult upon the man who 
 would so soon be beyond their reach, and that 
 object being accomplished, they were perforce
 
 176 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 content to ride off for the continuance of their 
 pretended search. Once out of sight they 
 made a detour, and struck off' in a direction 
 in which they were much more likely to 
 find the man whom they pursued. 
 
 Tom Barton, on entering the little house, 
 sat down upon a chest opposite to the door, 
 and did his best to subdue himself. His 
 hands writhed, and his face was grey with 
 rage. He had long since learned the necessary 
 lesson of self-control, but no such lesson is 
 mastered for ever by any man, and now that 
 for a moment the old bitter and passionate 
 sense of injustice was awakened, it took all his 
 strength to control it. 
 
 Mary, following him, took her place in a 
 rocking chair with the child in her arms. 
 The little fellow had once more begun fretfully 
 to complain, and the mother, half mechani- 
 cally recognising his trouble, drew him closer 
 to her bosom, and rocked him to and fro. 
 She looked straight before her with a face as 
 colourless as her husband's, seeing nothing,
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 177 
 
 hearing nothing, and seeming for the time 
 beinof to herself as if she felt nothincr. 
 
 Dogdyke's speech outside fell upon the 
 ears of husband and wife, and each of them, 
 in a fashion, followed the meaning of the 
 words. They heard the noise made by the 
 retirincr horsemen, and then Docrdvke entered, 
 still fuming. Lucy followed, and, seeing the 
 look on Mrs. Barton's face, approached the 
 chair she sat in and knelt down beside her. 
 
 ' Don't grieve, my dear,' she said kindly. 
 ' It was a wicked thing to say, but it can't 
 make any difference to those who know you 
 and love you. Don't care about it, my dear. 
 Don't think about it. Don't remember it.' 
 
 As Mrs. Dogdyke laid her hand upon her 
 arm, Mary suddenly ceased her agitated 
 plunging to and fro in the rocking chair and 
 sat quite silent. At this the child began to 
 cry more loudly, and Mrs. Dogdyke made a 
 motion to take it to her own arms. Mary 
 broke into loud and passionate weeping, and, 
 rising swiftly to her feet, began to pace up 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 178 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 and down tlie room, hugging the little fellow 
 still more closely, and kissing liim with an 
 almost passionate hysteria. 
 
 In all their times of trial — and they had 
 been many and severe — her husband had 
 never known her to give way. He had never 
 so much as seen a tear in her eyes. Some- 
 times she had looked worn, and sometimes, 
 as was no more than natural, a little sad ; but 
 she had borne everything with a tranquil 
 nobility of spirit which had seemed to him 
 altogether admirable and beautiful. Her un- 
 shakable faith in him, her devotion to him, 
 her courage and cheerful steadfastness had 
 made his wife not much less than an angel in 
 his eyes ; and that any scoundrel should have 
 had power to wound her thus filled him with 
 a rage of mingled wrath and tenderness. He 
 forgot the presence of Dogdyke and his wife, 
 and took Mary and the child together into his 
 own strong arms. 
 
 ' Don't cry, dear,' he said, ' don't cry.' 
 His voice trembled and was very husky.
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 179 
 
 * Tom/ cried his wife, drawing away from 
 him, ' I've stood everything up to now. I've 
 never minded anything for your sake, Tom, 
 but I won't have this. I won't I I won't I I 
 won't ! ' she declared in a voice of agony. 
 ' They shan't say anything against my child.' 
 
 ' They shan't, my darling,' said Tom, 
 soothingly. ' Don't take on about it. It's 
 only a low scoundrel like that fellow Bostock 
 as could ha' said it. Let him be, my darling, 
 let him be.' 
 
 ' Tom ! ' said his wife, almost wildly, as 
 she held out the child before her, ' I love him 
 dear. Heaven knows I love him, but I'd 
 rather see him in his little coffin — I'd rather 
 bury him — I'd rather let him wander away 
 in the wide, wide world, and never see his 
 face ao^ain — than have him live to grow 
 up and to understand those wicked, wicked 
 words.' 
 
 The husband was powerless at the sight 
 of this passion of grief and anguish, but he 
 was thoroughly single-hearted, and his wife*6 
 
 X 2
 
 i8o TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 trouble banished his remembrance of the in- 
 sult. He attempted once more to soothe her, 
 but it was all in vain ; Mary was not to be 
 comforted. She had schooled herself nearly 
 seven years ago to the knowledge that she, as 
 a convict's wife, must look for occasional 
 insult and undeserved disdain. Her surety in 
 her husband's innocence had been her support 
 through all that, and it had been, too, a part 
 of the burden she had wilfully elected to 
 carry, that the husband she loved so dearly 
 should be subject to contempt and scorn. 
 But until that hour it had never occurred to 
 her to think that her child would bear the 
 same brand, she had never dreamed that any 
 creature should be base enough and cruel 
 enough to transfer the undeserved stigma 
 from the father and fasten it upon the child. 
 It is always the form of crime which is least 
 possible to ourselves which excites our greatest 
 wonder and our deepest loathing. That is a 
 very commonplace reflection, little more ori- 
 ginal than the statement that two and two
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES i8i 
 
 make four, but even a commonplace is worth 
 asserting sometime?. 
 
 It was precisely such an insult as Bostock 
 had hurled at her which would have been the 
 last of possible crimes for Mary Barton. It 
 seemed incredible that any creature in the 
 world should have been guilty of so mean a 
 wickedness. Her child, her pure and inno- 
 cent baby, to be branded so ! She felt for the 
 time bemg as if her heart were broken. 
 
 It was an hour or two before she could be 
 pacified, and even then there came no more 
 than that seeming of tranquillity which at 
 such times is brought about by fatigue. 
 Mrs. Dogdyke helped her to her room, 
 and the heart-wounded creature lay down 
 with her boy still in her arms and sobbed 
 herself to sleep. Tom and Dogdyke walked 
 together over the roughly-cleared farming 
 land and made an examination of the crops, 
 which was, as might have been expected 
 under the circumstances, rather cursory. 
 
 ' When I get back to Hobart, said
 
 l82 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 Dogdyke, ' I'll make that blackguard smart. 
 I'll tell yoii what it is, Barton. I consider 
 that his conduct is a reflection upon myself. 
 I don't choose that people Avith whom I con- 
 sort should be subjected to that kind of insult.' 
 
 The fact that Mr. Dogdyke was aggrieved 
 was no great comfort to Barton, and when the 
 little man would fain have gone on with the 
 display of his own wounded self-importance, 
 under the devout impression that he was 
 espousing Mrs. Barton's cause, Tom stopped 
 him som^ewhat bluntly. 
 
 'I don't want to hear anything more 
 about this, Mr. Dogdyke,' he said, sticking 
 his hands into the side-pockets of his jean 
 coat and turning round upon his guest with a 
 lowering look altogether unfamiliar to his 
 face. ' Let this be the last of it, if you'll be 
 so good, sir.' 
 
 Now, when you are pouring out oil of 
 vitriol on the wounds of a friend under the 
 profound belief that you are anointing him 
 with balm of Gilead, it is always an irritating
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 183 
 
 thing to be arrested in your Christian efforts 
 to be of service. Tom's refusal of his sym- 
 pathy made Dogdyke angry, and the two 
 finished their round about the farm with but 
 httle further conversation. 
 
 They were out for an hour or two, and 
 when they returned near sundown, Mary, neat, 
 orderly, and quiet as ever in demeanour, was 
 going about the rooms and making prepara- 
 tions for the evening meal. Her face was 
 pale save where the salt of tears had red- 
 dened it, and once or twice Tom, regarding 
 her watchfully, heard a quick little involun- 
 tary sigh from her — such a swift jerking 
 breath as one notices from a child who has 
 had its cry out and has forgotten all about it, 
 though in some occult way his nerves still 
 remember. She gave no further sign than 
 this, and the party tranquilly took tea together, 
 Dogdyke leading such conversation as there 
 was to his own affairs, and diverMS^ thence 
 into the history of the Dogdyke family, 
 which had once on a time included in its
 
 1 84 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ranks no less a dignitary than a Lord Mayor 
 of London. 
 
 The business Dogdyke had just succeeded 
 to, and was now going out to control, lay in the 
 City, and Dogdyke evidently had it in his 
 mind that it was not absolutely impossible 
 that he too might share the civic glory of his 
 far-olF ancestor. He was not particularly 
 brilliant, nor remarkably interesting to those 
 who listened to him, but at least he kept them 
 from thinking of the events of the afternoon, 
 and in so far was a distinct blessing. 
 
 Mrs. Dogdyke and Mary spent the evening 
 in the sleeping-room, and Dogdyke and 
 Tom smoked outside the door of the hut 
 until complete darkness wrapped the country 
 in its folds. The house had but limited 
 accommodation for four people, and the only 
 possible arrangement for their disposition was 
 that the two women should occupy the bed- 
 room, whilst the men made each for himself a 
 shake-down on the floor of the adjoining 
 apartment. It was after midnight when Tom,
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 185 
 
 lying hardly asleep, heard a faint creaking at 
 the bedroom door, and saw, l)y the faint moon- 
 light which ghmmered through the unshut- 
 tered t\'indow, the figure of liis wife standing 
 in tne doorway. 
 
 * Anything the matter, dear ? ' he asked 
 her in a whisper. 
 
 'Nothing,' she answered. 
 
 Tom raised himself on his elbow and 
 looked at her, but offered no further inquiry. 
 She stood for a moment as if undetermined 
 whether to advance or retire, but suddenly, 
 with a quick, Hght footstep, made for the door 
 which led to the open air. It was merely 
 latched, and yielded to her hand at once. 
 Before Tom could make out her purpose she 
 had walked into the midnight darkness. 
 
 He rose hastily and followed her, bare- 
 footed. He had thrown himself upon the 
 blankets half-dressed. Mary was standing at 
 a distance of only a yard or two from the 
 house, and he could make out nothing but 
 -that she was looking straight before her, and
 
 1 86 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 that she stood with both hands clasped upon 
 her breast. He laid his hands upon her 
 shoulders and peered into her face, anxiously 
 striving to read the expression there. The 
 moon was at this season a mere crescent 
 thread, and in a less clear atmosphere would 
 have yielded no perceptible light at all. 
 Shining even through this pure air it gave 
 the disturbed husband only the faintest aid. 
 
 ' What is it, darlin' ? ' he asked her gently 
 in a half whisper. Then, without waiting for 
 her reply, ' Don't let it trouble you now, my 
 dear. Don't let it trouble you.' 
 
 She stood like a statue. He could just see 
 that her eyes kept the same fixed look. She 
 seemed not to hear, and he tightened his 
 grasp upon her shoulders. 
 
 'Speak to me, my dear. What's the 
 matter ? ' 
 
 Tom knew well enough what the matter 
 was, and the question was no more than one 
 of those helpless efforts to soothe which affec- 
 tion uses in the face of a grief which is not yet
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 187 
 
 to be consoled. Still Mary gave no answer, 
 and he shook her shghtly to call her attention 
 to himself. 
 
 ' Try to speak, my darhn'. Don't take on 
 like this — don't let it hurt you i' this way. 
 Cry a bit if you think it'd do you good, now.' 
 
 He put his arms about her and drew her 
 gently to his shoulder, and as he did so he 
 felt a faint shudder run through her frame 
 from head to foot. 
 
 ' It isn't worth while to take on like this,* 
 he whispered helplessly. 
 
 ' Tom, dear,' she answered, drawing herself 
 away from him and seizing both his hands in 
 hers as she did so, ' it shan't happen again.' 
 
 ' Xo, no, my darlin',' Tom said soothingly, 
 * it never shall happen any more.' 
 
 ' It'll happen every day if he stays here/ 
 she answered. Her voice rose little above a 
 whisper, but she spoke with an intense 
 vehemence he had never observed in her 
 before. ' So long as he stays here people will 
 say it. If they dare not say it before your
 
 i88 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 face they'll say it behind your back. If they 
 don't say it they'll think it, and I won't have 
 it even thought.' 
 
 ' My dear,' said Tom, ' I shall have my 
 freedom in a month. So soon as ever that 
 happens, I shall sell the farm and we'll get 
 away to America. That's the only plan that 
 I can see.' 
 
 ' It's not the only plan that I can see,' she 
 answered. ' I've been lying awake thinking 
 of it ever since I got to bed, and I've made my 
 mind up. I came out here because I couldn't 
 bear to think about it lying still, but I've 
 made my mind up, Tom, and there's nothing 
 in the world will alter me.' 
 
 ' My dear,' said Tom, ' you didn't use to be 
 like this. You may be quite sure I shan't try 
 to go again you. You can have your way, 
 whatever it is. Tell me what you have made 
 your mind up to.' She stood for a minute 
 or two in silence, and he waited for her 
 answer patiently. 
 
 ' Tell me,' he said again at last.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 189 
 
 ' I am going to ask Mrs. Dogdyke,' his 
 wife responded, ' to take the child away with 
 her. They're leaving in four days, Tom.' 
 
 He made a motion as if he would have 
 interrupted her, but she stretched up her 
 hands as if to command him to be silent, and 
 he obeyed the gesture. 
 
 ' I'm not going,' she said, ' to do you any 
 harm by my fancies, Tom. You've got to 
 sell the farm, and that'll take some time — it 
 may even take a month or two, three or four 
 months, maybe half-a-year, before you can 
 get the worth of the land and all your labour 
 on it. I'm not going to let you lose for me, 
 and I'm not that selfish that I'm goin' to run 
 away from you. I've thought it out, Tom, 
 and I've thought it out quite clear. Mrs. 
 Dogdyke shall take the child away with her. 
 I can do without him, for his sake, for a little 
 while, dear as I love him. I told you this 
 afternoon I'd rather see him dead than have 
 him talked about in such a way. I can pay 
 Mrs. Dogdyke for her trouble, and she likes
 
 190 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 me well enough to help me. She's got no 
 children of her own, and she's fond of little 
 Michael. I know she'll do it, wiUing, and 
 you mustn't try to change my mind, Tom. 
 It'll only make unhappiness between us.' 
 
 ' Why, as to that, my dear,' Tom answered, 
 ' I fancy that'll be a hard thing to do. I shall 
 never try to change your mind about any- 
 thin' that belongs to your own child. Take 
 a little time to think about this. Don't let 
 the idea run away with you. You've got 
 three or four days to turn it over in. If 
 your mind don't change you shall have your 
 way.' 
 
 She threw both arms about his neck and 
 kissed him. 
 
 ' But what I misdoubt about it is,' said 
 Tom, ' that you'll never bring yourself to 
 part with the child. Don't do anythin' rash, 
 dear — don't do anythin' rash. Wait and see. 
 You're getlin' no good in the night air here. 
 Won't you go indoors again ? ' 
 
 ' I'm happier now,' she answered, clinging
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 191 
 
 to him, ' and I shall sleep with a clear con- 
 science. Tom, you're the best husband i' 
 the world. You never let me wish for 
 anything that you can give me.' 
 
 ' I've got the best wife i' the world,' said 
 Tom. ' That much I know. Take your own 
 way to be happy, my dear, and so long as 
 you are happy I shall be satisfied. But don't 
 send the child away to be pinin' about him 
 afterwards.' 
 
 'I shan't pine about him,' she answered 
 firmly, ' so long as I know I've sent him away 
 for his own good.' 
 
 Tom sighed a little, and released her. 
 
 ' You'd best get back to bed again, my 
 dear.' 
 
 'Ah,' she said, 'but I won't have you 
 grievin' about it.' 
 
 ' Look here,' said Tom, with a sort of 
 dogged patience, 'I've never disputed your 
 way with the child. The child belongs to 
 you, and whatever you choose to do for him 
 is done for his good, I know. All I ask you
 
 192 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 is not to grieve yourself. You've had trouble 
 enough, Heaven knows, a'ready.' 
 
 'No fear for me,' she answered, almost 
 brightly. ' JSTo fear at all for me. Good- 
 night, darlin', and thank you, thank you from 
 the very bottom of my heart.' 
 
 She gave him a last kiss and fluttered 
 into tlie house. Tom stood alone a little 
 while, feeling rather staggered and discon- 
 solate at the turn affairs had taken. He 
 feared that Mary's resolution, if put into 
 effect, would be regretted in a very little 
 while, and yet he saw that without the 
 remonstrance which he did not care to offer, 
 or feel himself justified in offering, he was 
 powerless to prevent her from acting as she 
 had decided. Whilst he stood thinking Mary 
 came back again, and when she spoke to him 
 her voice was gay and playful. 
 
 ' You silly old Tom,' she said, ' standing 
 there with bare feet on the bare ground. 
 You'll catch your death of cold. Come 
 inside.
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 193 
 
 He made no immediate response, so she 
 pulled him towards the door, laid him down 
 on his improvised couch with imperious play- 
 fulness, covered him with the rugs he had 
 thrown off on arising, and tucked up his feet 
 with a number of little pats whicli were 
 evidently intended to be punitive. Then for 
 one second she bent over him with a happy 
 little gurgle of laughter, pecked with a kiss 
 at his nose, pulled his beard, and ran back to 
 her own room. 
 
 ' She seems to be happy about it,' Tom 
 thought, ' and if she isn't goin' to fret she 
 couldn't have come to a better resohition.' 
 
 With that reflection he tried to compose 
 himself to sleep, but lay awake for an hour or 
 two, in spite of his best efforts, looking at the 
 future. He was all but a free man again, and 
 in a very little while would be able to go 
 where he might choose, and to map out his 
 own destiny. As he was falhng half asleep 
 after many reflections, it occurred to him, in 
 a dim sort of way, that it would not be an 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 unwise thing if, on reaching America, he 
 should decide to change his name. He had 
 christened the boy Michael Hawthorne — why 
 should not the disgraced Barton's surname be 
 forgotten, wiped out, eliminated altogether? 
 In a new but already populous country like 
 America he might lose all trace of his former 
 self, retaining only his own integrity. Thus 
 no man could raise his voice against the boy. 
 That was something to think about, and 
 he lay considering it in a half slumber, too 
 lazy and inactive in his mind to make an 
 actual proposition of it or to survey it seriously, 
 and with a generally loose idea that it might 
 be worth while to investigate it at some more 
 active moment. With that thought still in his 
 mind he fell asleep, and, as often happens, his 
 waking in the morning brought his last con- 
 scious fancy back again. It came back clear, 
 sharply defined, almost like a resolution. He 
 put it by for the present, for there was some- 
 thing in it from which his whole mind turned, 
 but he resolved at least to think it over.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 195 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 To plan tlie smallest deceit is, to a man so 
 rigidly lionest as Tom Barton was, a matter 
 at once difficult and repulsive. It was all 
 very well for Tom to tell himself that the 
 motive justified everything, but he could see 
 ahead of himself a number of httle falsehoods 
 from which his whole nature shrank. 
 
 He and Mary together laid out and 
 matured a plan. Michael Hawthorne Barton 
 was to go to England as Michael Hawthorne ; 
 Tom Barton and Mary Barton, his parents, 
 were, in as short a space of time as should 
 prove possible for them, to follow him, taking 
 ship under their own name as far as Plymouth 
 and then becoming Tom and Mary Hawthorne. 
 They resolved to take up their child from the 
 care of the Dogdykes and go straight to 
 
 2
 
 196 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 America under the new name, where there 
 would be no fear of recognition, and no fear 
 of the child's future being spoiled by the 
 mischance that had befallen the father. It 
 was Tom who originally suggested this 
 plan, but it was his wife who really arranged 
 the details of it, and Tom consoled himself 
 for the disposition of affairs by the natural 
 reflection that matters of small deceit were 
 less immoral in the female sex than in his 
 own. 
 
 The Dogdykes were quite willing to take 
 little Michael. Mrs. Dogdyke quite leapt at 
 the chance of relieving the tedium of a long 
 voyage by his companionship, and Mr. Dog- 
 dyke, who was not nearly so much a ruler of 
 the household as he thought and pretended, 
 gave way with a very tolerable grace. Tom 
 placed in Dogdyke's hand a sum of two 
 hundred pounds. The provision looked ex- 
 travagant, but Mary would have it, so that, in 
 case the child fell ill, his temporary guardian 
 should be able to consult the very best
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 197 
 
 medical men to be engaged for money. In 
 her enforced absence from him it was essential 
 that the child should want for nothincr. Even 
 if the money had been Tom's own lie would 
 have been willing to make this provision, but, 
 as it was, it belonged entirely to his wife, and 
 she was fully welcome to her own way in 
 everything. 
 
 The parting, when it came, was hard both 
 for the father and the mother, and when the 
 ship sailed away from Hobart Town bearing 
 their treasure with it, they returned home in 
 a very sorrowful and disconsolate mood. ^Mary 
 shed a tear or two, and Tom began to fear 
 that she already regretted the resolve she had 
 so determinately carried into eflect. But in a 
 day or two he learned better. He could see 
 that she was happier and brighter than he 
 had ever known her to be. They made a 
 quiet fete together when the day of Tom's 
 freedom at length arrived, and began instantly 
 to arrange for their own departure to England. 
 But here an unexpected circumstance stepped
 
 198 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 in, and their plans took an unexpected direc- 
 tion. 
 
 A customer had abeady been found for 
 the farm, and the improvements Barton had 
 effected on the land were to be taken fairly- 
 liberal account of. The bargain was not 
 actually closed, but would have been con- 
 cluded within a week if it had not been for 
 the intervention of one Horrocks, an angular 
 Yankee farm hand, who, by some strange 
 chance, had wandered out to that part of the 
 world, and had now been in Barton's employ- 
 ment for a year. 
 
 He was a loose-limbed, grey-bearded man, 
 was Horrocks, with a hawk-like nose and a 
 pair of very small and glittering eyes. Nose 
 and eyes alone were visible amid the ragged 
 and unkempt growth of hair and beard. He 
 went shambling about the place with the 
 appearance of being of very little value to 
 anybody ; but, in spite of liis lazy and slouch- 
 ing aspect, got through his work respectably. 
 He was a sober man for one thing ; and,
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 199 
 
 though, at a distance of thirty miles from 
 town, there was hkelv to be httle drunken- 
 ness at any time, the other men in Tom's 
 employ had a habit of seeking such pre- 
 tence of civihsation as there was and re- 
 turning to savagery in the midst of it. Hor- 
 rocks alone kept clear of these occasional 
 outbreaks, and it was noticeable that he 
 spent his spare time in marching about the 
 mountain side with a pick slung over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 The district, as I have said already, was 
 well watered, and Horrocks confined himself 
 mainly in his solitary wanderings to the in- 
 vestigation of the various gulhes. He was 
 always free on Sundays, and chose those days 
 for his fossicking expeditions. His purpose 
 was perfectly well known and his pains were 
 laughed at. He had had Californian experi- 
 ence, and was wont to declare that Mount 
 Madagascar in many respects resembled the 
 gold-bearing districts of that country. His 
 lonely expeditions were all made in search of
 
 200 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 gold, and he was quite positive that one day 
 his labours would be rewarded. 
 
 Tom, to the derision of many, held family 
 worship on Sundays, and invited his helpers 
 to that solemn function. Some of them came 
 occasionally, but Horrocks never. At earliest 
 dawn, and sometimes even before it, he was 
 off with his pick, and a canvas bag containing 
 provisions for the day, and he was never back 
 till nightfall. 
 
 On a certain Sunday evening Barton was 
 surprised to see him striding towards the 
 farmstead long before sundown. He came 
 straight on, his slouching, shambling pace 
 amounting almost to a run, and Tom, standing 
 at his own door, pipe in mouth, turned his 
 chin over his shoulder to tell Mary, laughingly, 
 that here was Horrocks, and that Horrocks 
 for once seemed in a hurry. The man came 
 near, and Tom saw through the hirsute growth 
 of his face that he was pale. His little grey 
 eyes twinkled with excitement, and he threw 
 before his employer's feet a bag of rough and
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 201 
 
 dirty canvas, the contents of whicli made a 
 clash as of loose stones in falhng. 
 
 ' Well, Horrocksj' said Tom, 'what's the 
 matter P ' 
 
 ' The matter is,' said Horrocks, ' I've found 
 somethin'. I ain't found what I was lookin' 
 for — at least I ain't found exactly that — but 
 I've lighted on somethin' that's nigh on as 
 good, an' so I tell you.' 
 
 Horrocks' particular craze had long been 
 a matter of amusement to Barton, but there 
 was something in the man's manner which 
 was too striking and impressive for mere 
 laughter. 
 
 ' What have you found ? ' Tom asked 
 quietly, 
 
 Horrocks put up the back of his freckled 
 and sun-burnt hand and wiped his mouth with 
 it slowly, keeping his twinkling eyes fixed on 
 his employer the while. 
 
 'Look here, boss,' he said, 'I've always 
 found you a square man, and I believe you'U 
 do the square thing by me. I shall look for
 
 202 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 it, and so I tell you. This thing is on your 
 land, and it ain't a thing they'll make a rush 
 for. If it was gold they wouldn't care a cent 
 whose land it was. You'd have an army on 
 it in less than no time. It ain't gold, but 
 I've seen it open out a hundred times better, 
 and that's what it's going to do here. Now 
 mind,' said Horrocks, ' make no mistake about 
 it, I'm tellin' you.' 
 
 ' What have you found .^ ' Tom demanded, 
 growing a little excited. 
 
 'I think,' Horrocks answered, evasively, 
 ' that I've found a square man, but I want to 
 be sure o' that before I say any thin'.' 
 
 He spat upon his red hand, wiped the 
 palm dry on his clay-stained trousers, and 
 then held it out towards Barton. 
 
 'Put that there,' he said, and Tom, 
 ■accepting liis invitation, surrendered his 
 own hand. The other grasped it slowly 
 and strongly, looking him in the face mean- 
 wdiile. 
 
 ' I don't ask j^ou for nothin' unfair. Boss,*
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 203 
 
 he declared. ' I only want you to promise 
 that I shay n't be left out.' He was quite 
 cool to look at, but he was excited, never- 
 theless. • That's all I want,' said Horrocks, 
 gripping the hand he held a little liarder. 
 ^ That's enough for me.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Tom, ' what is it ? ' 
 
 ' It's millions,' said Horrocks, slowly and 
 deliberately, grasping him yet a little harder. 
 ' Milhons, that's what it is.' 
 
 Tom, in spite of himself, began to tremble. 
 Horrocks released his hand, stooped for the 
 bag he had cast down, and began fumblingly 
 to untie the string which bound it at the 
 neck. Finding this a task of some difficulty, 
 he knelt on the ground, resting the bag upon 
 his knee. It still resisting his efforts, he fell 
 upon it with a sudden burst of frenzy, and 
 worried the string with his teeth until he 
 loosened it. Then, still kneeling, he groped 
 in the bag with both hands and offered to 
 Barton half-a-dozen specimens. 
 
 'Take that brown 'un first,' he said.
 
 204 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 'Look at it, heft it. Do you know what 
 that is P ' 
 
 ' No,' said Tom, fiDgering the thing doubt- 
 fully, and Avith a shade of disappointment on 
 his face. ' I don't know. What is it ? ' 
 
 ' Cinnabar,' said Horrocks, rising to his 
 feet and declaiming awkwardly with botli 
 hands. 
 
 ' Cinnabar ? ' said Tom, as if doubtfully 
 tasting the word. ' Cinnabar ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' said Horrocks, continuing with- 
 out a pause, ' that's cinnabar, and it's one of 
 the noblest metals you'll find anywhere in the 
 bowels of the earth. It's a thing maybe you 
 never heard of, but I know where there's tons 
 of it — tons, and tons, and tons. D'ye hear ? 
 I tell you that if we work that out square 
 and straight you can buy this thundering 
 island.' 
 
 ' But,' said Tom, still governing himself, 
 and refusing to be too credulous about this 
 astonishing news, ' are you sure ? Do you 
 know what you're talking about ^ '
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 205 
 
 'Do I ? ' said Horrocks, suddenly cold and 
 sarcastic in manner. 'Do I know what I'm 
 talking about ? Well, yes, sir, I guess I do. 
 Some ! Ther's no kind o' precious metal 
 I ain't prospected for. Ther's no kind o' 
 precious metal I ain't found. Ther's no kind 
 o' minin' in precious metals that I ain't 
 worked at. You can play your pile on me. 
 Lay it all, every red cent of it ; I've got 
 a royal flush by the living holy, and I tell 
 you there's millions and millions on the table.' 
 
 There was at least no mistaking the man's 
 enthusiasm and certainty, and Tom caught 
 fire at it. There is hardly a creature in the 
 world, however ascetic he may be, however 
 limited his own desires, whatever his scorn of 
 mere vulsfar wealth, who would not thrill, 
 if only for a moment, at the sudden news 
 that potentialities of great wealth were in his 
 hands. 
 
 Mary, except that she had answered Tom 
 with a smile, had taken no notice of his 
 announcement of the messeno^er who brought
 
 2o6 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 tills extraordinary intelligence. Horrocks 
 was a familiar figure, and, on the wliole, 
 a rather laughable one. The mere announce- 
 ment that Horrocks was in a hurry was in 
 itself unexciting, and she had gone about her 
 household affairs without giving a moment's 
 thoucfht to him. But now her husband 
 called her from without in a loud, quavering 
 voice. 
 
 ' Mary ! Mary ! Come here ! ' 
 
 The tone brought her to the door in a 
 twinkling, and there were Tom and Horrocks 
 gioAvering over a little handful of common- 
 place-looking pebbles and of earthy rock. 
 
 ' Tom ! ' she cried, ' what's the matter ? ' 
 
 'Ask Horrocks,' Tom responded. She 
 turned her inquiring gaze upon the man, who 
 held out in the dirty palm of his left hand a 
 piece of what looked like hard brown earth. 
 Horrocks was cool again and spoke in a com- 
 posed voice, drawling perhaps a trifle more 
 than usual. 
 
 ' That's cinnabar,' he said. ' It's easier to
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 207 
 
 mine tliat metal than any other in the world. 
 You can just dig it up, hoist it into a waggon, 
 and drive it away and ship it. It's worth six 
 hundred dollars a ton in the rough, and I'm 
 going to swear that there's acres of it on this 
 land.' 
 
 Mary gave a httle incredulous laugh, but 
 the statement took Tom's breath away. Hor- 
 rocks had convinced him already. 
 
 ' You've got silver, too,' said Horrocks^ 
 ' chunks of it. I've known that for a lonor 
 while. Whether it's worth getting or no I 
 can't teU yet, and I haven't spoken about it 
 because silver's a thing it takes a lot of capital 
 to work ; but here,' he continued, throwing up 
 two or three brown specimens at once, and 
 catching them all with great dexterity, ' here's 
 your capital and no mistake. You needn't 
 care a dern about the silver, I tell you, 
 you're worth milhons, and there's an end of 
 it.' 
 
 He had grown a Httle wikl again, and 
 wiping the back of his hand across his mouth
 
 2o8 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 once more, he cooled, and said, with ridiculous 
 solemnity, ' I've not taken whisky for full a 
 year. I haven't wanted it. It's a thing I take 
 no stock in as a general rule, but if there's 
 any handy I'd like to taste it, boss. I feel to 
 want it, boss. I've had this thing on my 
 mind' — he opened his hand to display the 
 specimen as he spoke — ' for four hours, and 
 not a soul to speak about it to. Now that's a 
 trying thing when you come to think about 
 it, and I don't scruple to allow I feel a trifle 
 down.' 
 
 'You shall have a glass of whisky, 
 Horrocks,' Tom replied. He was sternly 
 abstemious, but when he had first entered 
 upon possession of the homestead he had laid 
 in a store of spirits in case of sudden illness. 
 It had remained unopened until that moment, 
 and now was broached for the discovery. 
 Mary was yet unconvinced, and the demand 
 for whisky made her almost altogether scep- 
 tical. She had, too, the old-fashioned English 
 reverence for Sunday, and felt as if there were
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 209 
 
 a sort of profanity in grasping after riches on 
 that day. 
 
 ' Leave it till to-morrow, Tom/ she be- 
 sought her husband. ' You don't know any- 
 thing about these things, and it may turn out 
 to be nothing after all. Don't think about it 
 on a Sunday.' 
 
 But Tom was not yet to be drawn from 
 the contemplation of the specimens, and he 
 and Horrocks remained outside discussing 
 them and reviewing all the possibiHties of 
 the future. 
 
 ' If you like,' said Horrocks, * 111 walk 
 down to Hobart with one or two of these. 
 There's a chap there who takes himself to 
 be a metaUist. I guess he ain't big shucks 
 on me ; but he's reckoned a big one, and 
 perhaps the missis there will take his word 
 when she won't take mine. She's welcome. 
 I ain't proud, but I tell you, boss, I'm going 
 to be. You see me in a twelvemonth's time, 
 and there ain't a metallist from here to San 
 Francisco that I'd live in the same street 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 2IO TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 with. And mind you,' lie added, laying a 
 hand on Barton's arm, ' I'm asking nothing 
 that ain't fair and square. I shall trust you 
 to act like a white man, that's all.' 
 
 ' You may trust me,' Tom answered. * I 
 shall deal fair and square with you — I'm 
 Stafford.' 
 
 'What's Stafford? ' asked Ilorrocks. 
 
 'I'm a Stafford man,' said Tom. 'I come 
 from Staffordshire, in England.' 
 
 ' And Stafford stands for straight, I take 
 it ? ' inquired Horrocks. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Tom ; ' Stafford stands for 
 straight. The land's mine, and if your news 
 turns out true, I shall have to find the 
 money and the labour ; but neither the 
 money, nor the labour, nor the land would 
 have been a lot of use to me if you hadn't 
 been here to help. Look here, a third for 
 the land, a third for the labour, a third 
 for the discovery. What do you say to 
 that?' 
 
 ' Put it there,' returned Horrocks, ex-
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 211 
 
 tending his band once more. Tom shook 
 hands again. 'It's more than I expected, 
 but it ain't more than you can afford. I'm 
 going to be a milhonaire, and you are going 
 to be twice as rich as me. That's settled* 
 You see, when it comes to piles hke this, 
 it's enough to have a share in it. What the 
 share is it don't matter.' 
 
 In these terms the bargain was concluded, 
 and it is a noticeable thing that the part- 
 nership by which the great cinnabar mine 
 of ]Mount Madao'ascar was worked for so 
 many years never received any further rati- 
 fication. The despised professional metallur- 
 gist at Hobart was consulted, and fully con- 
 firmed the estimate of the discoverer of the 
 mine. It is hardly necessary to say that the 
 land was not sold, or that Tom Barton be- 
 came instantly a man of consequence. It 
 was evident there was no going back to 
 England for a while, and the original term 
 of little J\Iichaers division from his parents 
 had to be for the present indefinitely length.- 
 
 p 2
 
 212 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ened. Mary rebelled against this at first, 
 but by-and-by was all in favour of it. 
 
 ' Tom,' she said one night, as she and her 
 husband sat together in the old room which 
 had grown sacred to them by reason of the 
 associations which surrounded it, ' Heaven's 
 going to bless us with riches.' 
 
 ' Yes, my dear,' said Tom ; ' that's so. 
 We're going to be richer than I ever wanted 
 to be, and my constant hope and prayer is 
 that it won't spoil us.' 
 
 ' It won't spoil you, Tom,' his wife an- 
 swered, lovingly and admiringly. ' And I 
 think,' she added more seriously, ' that it 
 won't spoil me.'
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 213 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ' Mr. J. Dextox, D.C.L., Atlien^um Club, 
 London.' The postmaster of Hobart Town 
 read the card laid on the rough counter 
 before him, shying a little at the word 
 ' Athenceum,' and then looked up at his 
 visitor. 
 
 ' Any letters for me ? That's my name.' 
 
 ' Xo letters, sir,' the postmaster responded. 
 
 ' Tell me,' said the visitor, ' if you know 
 a Mr. Barton hereabout? — a Mr. Thomas 
 Barton.' 
 
 ' Barton of Mount Madasrascar ? ' said the 
 postmaster. 
 
 ' That's the man,' Denton answered. ' How 
 far is he away from here ? ' 
 
 ' About thirty miles,' said the postmaster. 
 ' A pretty good track. If you're thinking of
 
 214 
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 going up that way I can let you have a 
 buggy, a pair of horses, and a driver. That's 
 in my Hue of business.' 
 
 ' You may order the conveyance at once,' 
 said Denton. Then, leaning both elbows on 
 the counter, he fell into conversation with the 
 postmaster. 
 
 ' You know this Barton ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes,' the postmaster admitted, ' I 
 know him. Not to say actually know him — 
 not to be famihar with him. We pass a word 
 or two together now and then. There's 
 nothing stuck up about Barton, and that's 
 what we like him for.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Denton, with a grave uplifting 
 of his eyebrows, 'there's nothing stuck up 
 about Barton ? He's popular, isn't he ? ' 
 
 ' I shouldn't say,' returned the postmaster, 
 ' that there's any man better respected or 
 more liked in the colony tlian Tom Barton. 
 " Honest Tom " they've took to call him. 
 He's making money by the hatful.' 
 
 ' Married man, I believe ? ' said Denton.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 215 
 
 'Married man, sir,' the postmaster an- 
 swered. 
 
 ' Any children ? ' 
 
 ' There was a child,' said the postmaster, 
 ' but Mr. Dogdyke, the Governor's private 
 secretary, took charge of it, and took it away 
 to England nigh upon four years a gone. 
 Halloa, you Jim ! ' he cried, suddenly, break- 
 ino; from behind the counter and dashinc? into 
 the street. ' Here's a gentleman wants to 
 get up to Barton's at Mount Madagascar. 
 Just get the horses into the buggy, will 
 
 you?' 
 
 ' All right,' said the man thus addressed, 
 and disappeared into a ramshackle little 
 buildiuii on the other side of the street. The 
 postmaster lounged back again and renewed 
 the conversation. 
 
 ' Landed this morning from the '' Europa," 
 sir?' 
 
 ' Yes,' Denton returned. ' I came in the 
 " Europa." ' 
 
 ' Fine boat,' said the postmaster.
 
 2i6 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 Denton nodded. The official found the 
 conversation begin to languish, and returned 
 to his duties. Denton sauntered into the 
 street and awaited the arrival of the buggy. 
 It came up in two or three minutes ; a rough, 
 serviceable vehicle, drawn by two sinewy, 
 shaggy horses, and directed by a brigandish- 
 looking person in a red sliirt and a slouched 
 wideawake and high boots. Denton entered 
 the vehicle, bearing a small hand-bag with 
 him. The driver gathered up the reins, and 
 was just about to start when the postmaster 
 issued from his place of business with the 
 mail-bag. 
 
 ' Catch that,' he cried : ' Barton's letters. 
 There'll be nobody going up for a week, and 
 you may as well take them. There's this 
 morning's mail there as well.' 
 
 The driver dexterously caught the bag, 
 threw it into the interior of the buggy, and 
 gave his horses the signal for the start. 
 
 Three years had gone by since Horrocks 
 had made his great discovery, and now
 
 TIMES REVENGES 217 
 
 between the town and Blount Madagascar 
 there was a moderately good track. The un- 
 accustomed traveller occasionally experienced 
 a shock ; but those who were used to the 
 road looked on it as making a reasonable 
 approach towards perfection. It was in no 
 place steeper than the roof of an ordinary 
 house, and there were not above two or three 
 hundred holes in the whole thirty miles in 
 which it would have been possible to bury a 
 grand piano. 
 
 Four hours" drive brought the traveller 
 to his destination, and he ahghted in front 
 of a substantial house of wood with a large 
 verandah. The place had a look of rather 
 desolate newness as yet, but it was solidly 
 built and stood in the midst of an inclosure, 
 surrounded by wooden palings, in which some 
 attempt had already been made to reduce the 
 land to the semblance of a garden. A couple 
 of men were working at it when Denton 
 stepped from the buggy. He walked through 
 the gate and up the steps leading to the
 
 2i8 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 verandah. The door was open, but, finding 
 no bell or knocker, he rapped on the wood- 
 work with the handle of the umbrella he 
 carried. 
 
 ' Come in,' cried a manly voice, and, obey- 
 ing this injunction, Denton marched into the 
 hall and along the unclothed floor to a side 
 room Trom which the voice had proceeded. 
 There, at a desk, sat a great broad-shouldered 
 fellow, dressed in a suit of grey flannel and 
 wearing a wideawake perched at the back of 
 his head. He was tanned so deeply by the 
 sun that his grey-blue eyes looked almost white 
 by contrast, and a huge moustache and great 
 russet beard so effectually disguised him that 
 Denton made no guess as to his identity, 
 though he had almost made sure of the 
 voice. 
 
 ' This is Mr. Barton's house, I believe ? ' 
 
 ' This is Mr. Barton's house,' said the 
 
 bearded man, rising and advancing, ' and 
 
 there's no one in the wide world more 
 
 welcome to it than Mr. Denton.' His face
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 219 
 
 broke into a delighted sniile, and he held out 
 a hard brown liand in welcome. 
 
 Denton took it heartily, and looking up at 
 his tanned and bearded face, nodded twice or 
 thrice to express his own amazement. 'Bar- 
 ton, I shouldn't have known you, though I 
 thought myself rather good at recalling faces.' 
 
 ' You're a sight for sore eyes,' said Tom. 
 ' But whatever brings you, sir, into this out- 
 of-the-way corner of the world P ' 
 
 ' My health broke down,' Denton answered. 
 ' My doctor ordered me away for a long sea 
 voyage, and I tliought I couldn't do better 
 than have a look at the colonies. Tve been 
 through Australia already. I arrived here 
 from Melbourne this morning, and I'm off in 
 a fortnight to have a look at Xew Zealand. I 
 came here by way of the Cape of Good 
 Hope, and shall go back by Cape Horn, and 
 so you see I shall have made the tour of the 
 world.' 
 
 ' But where's your lugcrao-e. Mr. Denton ? * 
 
 ' I left it at Hobart.'
 
 220 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' I'll see to that at once,' said Tom, and, 
 striding to the door, he hailed the driver. 
 * Come in here, Jim ! This gentleman '11 tell 
 you what's wanted. You can get a fresh pair 
 of horses when you get down to Hobart. Get 
 the things up to-night somehow. We'll 
 find a shakedown for you, and you can get 
 back in the mornin'.' 
 
 ' Nonsense,' said Mr. Denton. 
 
 ' Nonsense,' Tom echoed. ' We're not 
 going to let you out of our hands yet awhile, 
 you be sure. I'll go and fetch the missis. 
 She'll be Vight-down glad to see you. Wait 
 here a bit.' 
 
 Away marched Tom to tell the news, and 
 Denton looked after his sturdy, manly figure 
 with an eye of friendship and approval. By- 
 and-by Mary came, fresh, neat, and blooming, 
 as he had seen her in the little cottage at 
 home at Heydon Hay. There was a renewal 
 of greeting, and the three sat down to talk. 
 
 'The Lord has seen fit to bless us,' said 
 Tom. ' It's a queer thing, sir, but it looked
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 221 
 
 like ruin and a broken heart. You remem- 
 ber, Mr. Denton ? And now just look round 
 and see what's come of it. I'm a rich man, 
 sir ; I am a very rich man. And I'm going 
 to be stiJI richer.' 
 
 ' You'll be coming back to England shortly, 
 Barton, won't you ? ' Denton asked him. 
 
 ' There's nothino- 1 should like better,' Tom 
 answered. His face clouded a little as he 
 spoke, and his frank grey eyes Avandered 
 somewhat uncertainly. 
 
 ' I should Uke to go back and see the folks. 
 I should like to see the old place again, but 
 I'm a bit uncertain. I can't fix my mind 
 about it anyhow, nor yet can't the missis.' 
 
 ' I can assure you,' said Denton, • that 
 there's nothing but respect and sympathy 
 waiting for you. The first news of your good 
 fortune reached England just a month or two 
 before I came away, and everybody who knew 
 you was rejoicing over it. They seemed to 
 think that your good fortune is a kind of j)ay- 
 ment for undeserved suffering.'
 
 222 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' There's no good fortune that'll ever pay 
 for that, Mr. Denton,' said Mary quietly. 
 ' We're not unthankful, either of us ; and that 
 time's dead and done with. But we can't 
 forget it.' 
 
 She spoke with perfect quiet, but there 
 was something in her voice which kept Denton 
 silent for a moment. She went on ao^ain : 
 
 ' Tom makes believe to think, sir, that we 
 shall go back to England some time, but we 
 never shall.' 
 
 ' Oh, I hope so,' said Denton, ' I hope so. 
 There's nothing to keep you away, surely.' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' said Mary ; ' there's a many 
 things to keep us away. There's one thing 
 in particular.' 
 
 ' Indeed,' said the barrister rather awk- 
 wardly, ' and ' 
 
 ' What the missis means is this,' said Tom, 
 leaning^ his elbows on his knees and takino- 
 his bearded chin between both palms. ' She 
 won't mind my telling it to an old friend like 
 you, sir. You'll excuse my saying that, Mr.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 223 
 
 Denton, but we look on you as an old friend 
 here, and we haven't forgot your letter, nor 
 yet what you did for us both at home.' 
 
 ' Xever mind all that,' interposed Denton, 
 hastily. 
 
 ' We do mind it,' said Tom, ' though if 
 you'd rather I didn't I'll say no more about it. 
 But here's the plain fact, sir. We sent our 
 little boy to Encfland, a matter of three and 
 a half years ago. It was a sore wrench to 
 part with him, more especially for the missis, 
 but we sent him for his good. You see, sir, 
 it's like this.' He was evidently ill at ease, 
 and to Denton's shrewd observation it looked 
 as if he were trying to present a case for 
 which he himself had httle value — as if he 
 were offering an argument which had no 
 Tveight with him. ' It's like this, sir. There's 
 a blot upon my name, and though I don't 
 think it amounts to much amongst the folks 
 as know me, it amounts to everythin' amongst 
 the folks as don't know me. Any man at any 
 minute can point me out and say, '' There goes
 
 224 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 Tom Barton, the convict ; he's rich now, made 
 money out in Van Diemen's Land, but he's an 
 old lag all the same, and served his seven 
 years' transportation." Now, you see, sir, I've 
 got to put up with that, and the missis has got 
 to put up with it likewise. We've squared our 
 shoulders to endure it. But there's the boy. 
 He hasn't squared his shoulders to endure it, 
 and we've made up our minds that he shan't 
 be pointed to as our child.' 
 
 ' You've surrendered the boy altogether ? ' 
 cried Denton in astonishment. 
 
 'We hope not,' Barton answered. 'We 
 hope that when he comes to manhood we'll be 
 able to tell him, if we should live so long, and 
 that he won't value us any lightlier for what 
 we've done. It's been for his good, Mr. 
 Denton, and it's been a sore matter to us. 
 Perhaps — I don't know — but perhaps if I 
 could get away to America — you see, the lad's 
 in England under my mother's name. My 
 mother was a Hawthorne, and we christened 
 him Michael Hawthorne. Now, I've thought
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 225 
 
 it over, and it seems to me a man's got as 
 mucli right to his mother's name as he has to 
 his father's. If I could get away to America 
 — plain Tom Hawthorne — I might get the boy 
 with me, and nobody'd know where we'd 
 come from. But then, you see, sir, there's 
 another matter. Where's this property going ? 
 Lord knows I don't want money for myself. 
 We've got enough already, and more than 
 enough to last our lifetime, but it's a sort of a 
 trust.' 
 
 ' A trust ? ' said Denton, questioningly. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Tom, ' it's a sort of a trust. 
 It's a trust for the boy. Xow look you here, 
 sir, here's what the missis thinks. We've 
 brought that boy into the world. He's got a 
 father and mother as love him too well to dare 
 to own him. He's robbed of a mother's love 
 — robbed of a father's care. Now we owe that 
 lad something, don't you think ? Ain't it my 
 plain duty to do all I can to smooth his path 
 for him, and to give him a fair, bright chance 
 in the world? That's how we look at it.' 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 Denton, on his first arrival, had carried in 
 the mail-bag as well as his own valise, and 
 they now lay on the table within reach of 
 Barton's hand. He took it up presently, and 
 drawing a bunch of keys from his pocket, 
 selected the one which opened the bag, and 
 began absently to turn over his correspon- 
 dence. 
 
 ' There's the newspapers for you, Mary,' 
 he said, rising and handing the packet to his 
 wife, ' and here's a letter in her ladyship's 
 own writing. Here's one for me from Sir 
 Ferdinand. It's pleasant,' he added, turning 
 to his guest, 'to find that old friends don't 
 forget us.' 
 
 ' Do you know. Barton,' said Denton, 
 anxious to escape from the sense of awkward- 
 ness which seemed to have fallen on them 
 all, ' you're quite like a breath of Old Eng- 
 land.' 
 
 ' As how ? ' Tom asked. 
 
 ' That good old-fashioned midland accent 
 of yours,' returned Denton. ' I should have
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 227 
 
 thought you would have forgotten what you 
 had by this time, but to my mind it's twice as 
 marked as ever.' 
 
 ' Is it now ? ' said Tom. ' Well, now you 
 come to say so, I suppose it is. I found a 
 kind of comfort in it, and I daresay I 
 thickened it a bit without thinkin' on it. 
 Then, besides that, it don't do to give these 
 chaps here as I've got under me any fine- 
 mouthed sort o' lingo. They want plain 
 straightfor'ard talk, and the plainer it is the 
 better they like it.' 
 
 'You notice the old tone, Mrs. Barton, 
 don't you ? ' 
 
 ' Notice ! ' responded Mary, with half a 
 laugh. ' Tom's getting to be a regular bear. 
 We sit down of a night sometimes, and Tom 
 says to me, " Xow, my dear, let's have a bit 
 of Castle Barfield," and he'll talk just as broad 
 as he can all night. I teU him, if ever we get 
 back to a place where it matters, he won't be 
 able to talk fit to be listened to.' 
 
 ' Why, you're catching the accent, too, 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 cried Denton, laughing outright, for Mary- 
 had fallen insensibly into the echo of her 
 husband's homely tones. 
 
 She laughed a little, and half blushed, and 
 then answered in the broadest Barfield drawl, 
 ' I beant ashaamed on it.' 
 
 There was a general laugh at this, and 
 Mrs. Barton rose to see about accommo- 
 dation for her guest. She carried the 
 packet of newspapers with her, and Tom and 
 Denton strolled out together for half-an-hour, 
 for a talk and a smoke, pending the prepara- 
 tion of the mid-day dinner. A rough Irish 
 domestic was the only serving woman so far 
 in the household, and she surprised Tom on 
 his return by the statement that Mrs. Barton 
 had gone to her bedroom and begged to be 
 excused from the table. 
 
 ' Why,' cried Tom, ' what's the matter ? ' 
 
 ' Oi don't know what the matther is,' the 
 girl blurted out, 'she's crying watherspouts, 
 but what it's for, sorra one o' me knows.' 
 
 With a hurried word to Denton, Barton
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 229 
 
 ran to his wife's room, and, finding the door 
 locked against him, rapped softly for admis- 
 sion. He had to knock more and yet more 
 urgently before liis summons was answered, 
 and when at last the door was opened, Mary 
 faced him tear-stained and dishevelled. 
 
 ' Why, Mary, my darhn',' said Tom, ' what 
 is it? Xo — no bad news from home ? Xothin' 
 wrong with the boy ? ' 
 
 His voice trembled as he questioned her. 
 
 ' No,' she answered, 'there's nothing wrong 
 with the boy. Don't mind me, Tom ; I'm a 
 weak, foolish creature ' 
 
 'Neither weak nor foolish,' said Tom, 
 stoutly and yet tenderly. * Tell me what 
 troubles you.' 
 
 Three or four crumpled newspapers lay 
 upon the bed, which still bore the impress of 
 his wife's figure. The upper newspaper was 
 wet with tears. She took it quietly from its 
 place and handed it to her husband. 
 
 ' That's all, Tom,' she said, ' I hadn't ought 
 to have made a fuss about it, but there it is.
 
 230 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 I don't suppose anybody sent it in spite, but 
 it's in all these papers.' 
 
 Tom's eyes caught an article of two-thirds 
 of a column in length, roughly marked out in 
 ink, and headed 'A Convict Millionaire.' 
 Glancing down the column he saw his own 
 name again and again repeated. He was not, 
 as a rule, a rapid reader, but now, in his 
 excitement, he made out, almost at a glance, 
 that the article set forth the history of his 
 conviction and his recent rise to wealth. 
 
 ' My dear,' he said, ' this don't matter 
 to us.' 
 
 ' Matter ! ' she cried. ' Doesn't it matter 
 to the boy ? The convict millionaire ! Don't 
 you see, Tom, that your name's everywhere ? 
 Don't you see you can't hide yourself ? 
 Don't you see it marks the boy as well as 
 you ? " The convict's brat ! " Oh, Tom, 
 Tom, 1 wish he'd never been born.' 
 
 Tom let her have her cry out, only laying 
 a caressing hand upon her shoulder now and 
 again ; and when she had recovered self-
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 231 
 
 control, he gathered up the newspapers and 
 rejoined Denton. 
 
 'The missis is a bit upset,' he said, sim- 
 ply. ' That's done it,' he added, displaying 
 the article. ' Don't bother to read it now, 
 Mr. Denton, but sit down to dinner ; we'll 
 have a talk about it afterwards.' 
 
 The meal was not yet over when Mary 
 joined them. She was quite composed again, 
 and nothing but a slight pallor remained as 
 a sim of her recent ao-itation. 
 
 ' I want to talk to Mr. Denton,' she said, 
 when the table was cleared. 
 
 ' I am at your service, Mrs. Barton,' re- 
 turned the barrister. 
 
 ' You promised help to us, Mr. Denton,' 
 she beoran, ' if vou could ever o^ive it.' 
 
 ' I did,' he answered ; ' and I am ready 
 to fulfil my promise.' 
 
 ' You have read these ? ' she asked, hold- 
 ing up one of the newspapers. ' Mr. Denton, 
 we shall never see our child again, or, if we 
 do, hell never know his father and his
 
 232 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 mother. Tom's rich ; he can pay anything. 
 The boy must be brought up hke a Christian 
 gentleman ; he must never know who he is, or 
 what we are, or where his name comes from. 
 He'll have plenty of money. Will you take 
 charge of him? I don't mean to burden 
 you. I don't mean to trouble you. But 
 will yon watch over him? Will you see 
 that he gets good schooling? Will you see 
 that he's well looked after, that he's put into 
 the hands of good people, who'll love him 
 and care for him, not like his mother would, 
 but like good folks, who'll have pity on a 
 helpless orphan? We're plain, stupid people, 
 Tom and me. We've raked our brains, 
 nights and nights, to try and see how we 
 can keep the truth away from him when he 
 grows up to be a man.' 
 
 ' I'd rather he knew it,' Tom murmured 
 gravely. 
 
 ' He shan't know it,' his wife cried. ' He 
 shall never know it, if I can help it. Oh, 
 Mr. Denton, will you help me? Think of
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 233 
 
 it ! It don't come easy to a mother's heart 
 to say, " 111 never see my child again,'' but 
 will you, will you help me for his sake ? 
 You're a clever man, Mr. Denton. You can 
 make up a tale that plain folks like us can't 
 think about. Will you do it ? ' 
 
 ' Mrs. Barton,' returned Denton ; ' let me 
 talk over this matter with your husband. If 
 he consents I'll do anything in my power.' 
 
 'Consent!' said Tom. 'I don't see why 
 I shouldn't. It's a thing as can always be 
 undone if the missis should ever come to 
 wish it. And in the meantime it's as good 
 a plan as any, better perhaps than any. If 
 you'll oblige my wife in this matter, I shall 
 take it as a favour, sir.' 
 
 ' Very well,' said Denton ; ' we'll count 
 that as a bargain.'
 
 234 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII 
 
 We have passed over a space of twenty years 
 in time. We are away from the wilds of 
 Tasmania, and find ourselves in civilised Potts 
 Point. Potts Point is the Belgravia of Sydney, 
 and Sydney, as most of the world knows, is the 
 capital city of New South Wales, the parent 
 city of that great Antipodean continent which 
 will one day have its word to speak in the 
 history of the world. We are on the lawn of 
 the Grampians, overlooking the beautiful har- 
 bour. The waters of the harbour smile and 
 ripple in the summer sunlight, for we are 
 nearing Christmas. The weather, though hot, 
 is crisp and clear, and that for Sydney is a de- 
 licious rarity. The sun shines out in southern 
 majesty, and the sea is all sapphire and 
 emerald. There are the gaily-striped marquees
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 235 
 
 on the lawn of tlie Grampians, and the para- 
 sols of the ladies, waving hither and thither 
 in the brilhant air, look like so many enormous, 
 gaily-tinted butterflies. The dresses are all 
 of the brightest and newest fashions, the whole 
 scene palpitates with hght and colour. 
 
 The Governor is present, and so is his 
 friend General Mallard, so that the society of 
 Potts Point is doubly blessed. General Mallard 
 is an estimable gentleman, who has served his 
 country in the field right nobly, and who now 
 does his honest feeble best to serve her in 
 Parhament. 
 
 General Mallard, not a particularly dis- 
 tinsfuished-lookinsf man, o-oes with a halt in 
 his gait, a dot-and-go-one motion which some- 
 times excites ridicule in the minds of those 
 who are not aware of his military reputation. 
 When he appears in uniform and the Victoria 
 Cross shows on his scarlet tunic, people for- 
 get to smile at the oddness of his walk. But 
 the wound which gives that peculiarity was 
 received, as a matter of fact, a year or two
 
 236 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 before the General had ever smelt powder in 
 action. 
 
 The General has seen only half a century 
 of life, but looks already venerable, being 
 aged by hard fighting, many sicknesses, and 
 many injuries received in battle. He is ac- 
 companied by his daughter Clara, and is 
 travelling with her to enlarge her mind by a 
 contemplation of the devoted loyalty of 
 colonial people to the British crown and con- 
 stitution. Gentlemen of General Mallard's 
 standing, who travel in the colonies, form, as 
 a rule, the sweetest opinion on this topic. 
 
 It is certain, at least, that Potts Point and 
 Toorak are friendly to the whole race of dis- 
 tinguished people, and it is easy to forget that 
 Potts Point and Toorak are not Australia. 
 
 Miss Mallard was, and is, as good and 
 pretty a girl as a man might wish to meet ; as 
 frank and as honest as a boy, and in love with 
 the whole of the wide, wide world and its 
 inhabitants. The General, her father, was 
 proud of her, as he had a right to be, and she
 
 TIME'S REVE.\GES 
 
 237 
 
 ruled liim Tvith a rod of sunbeams. Forty 
 young men at the garden party at the Gram.- 
 pians were in love with her more or less. 
 They drank champagne in the big marquee, 
 avoided conversation, and brooded darkly on 
 the vileness of all social divisions. 
 
 The Governor's party made a little group 
 and had a httle court around it. The inner 
 circle included the General and his daughter, 
 and Mr. ]\Iichael Hawthorne, a young gentle- 
 man from home. He was a frank and genial 
 fellow of perhaps six and twenty, who should 
 have been a very happy young man indeed, 
 for he was worth two millions sterHng solid, 
 was in the very pink of health and condition, 
 of a most equable and cheerful temper, and 
 was head over ears in love. He had come 
 from England in the wake of ^liss Mallard, 
 ostensibly with the intent of inquiring into 
 certain properties belonging to him, but in 
 reahty to be near her. He had long since 
 made up his mind to speak, but had not 
 yet found the words.
 
 238 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 General Mallard was not a distinguished 
 man to look at, thoughundeniably a gentleman. 
 The Governor, though undeniably a gentleman 
 also, had no personal cachet of superiority to 
 the rest of the world. But a personage who 
 swaggered in the outer ring looked as im- 
 posing as a dozen governors rolled into one, 
 and was evidently a someone, if only in his 
 own opinion. He was dressed in a lavender 
 frock-coat and lavender trousers, and he wore 
 a waistcoat of watered silk, across which 
 trailed a great gold chain. His shoes, his 
 gloves, his hat, all matched the lavender tone 
 of coat and trousers to a shade. His scarf was 
 of delicate blue, and was fastened by a cameo 
 ring. He was inclined to be tall, and more 
 than inclined to be portly. His hair had once 
 been flaxen, and was now fading to that no- 
 colour which in people of his complexion is 
 the prelude to the first sign of grey. He 
 wore it long, and it curled inwards at the 
 ends. His cheeks were fat ; his huge mous- 
 tache curved over to obscure his mouth ; he
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 239 
 
 had shaggy eyebrows and blue eyes — china 
 bhie, and cruel in expression. He wore 
 spectacles which had a broad gold rim, and 
 from head to foot of the man his nationality 
 declared itself. 
 
 ' I met the young chentleman in Europe/ 
 he was saying, addressing a small group of 
 listeners. 'I was aple to be of some httle 
 service to him in Berlin. It is a troll thing, 
 is it not, that a poor Cherman chentleman 
 who never did a stroke of pusiness in his Hfe 
 should find himself in a position to save a 
 millionaire from trouble about his hotel pill ? * 
 
 ' Trouble about his hotel bill ? ' asked one 
 of his listeners, with a laugh of incredulity. 
 
 ' Strange, is it not ? ' said the Count von 
 Herder, shding the cameo ring a httle up 
 and down his scarf with a gloved thumb and 
 finger. 
 
 'Strange, beyond a doubt,' said a little 
 high-dried old gentleman at the Count's elbow. 
 'But true, eh. Count? I think you and I 
 know all about that transaction.'
 
 240 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' All ! ' cried the Count, prolonging, the 
 word in a rapturous falsette. ' The good Mr. 
 Denton ! I am telighted to renew our ac- 
 quaintance.' He shook hands and tapped 
 the high-dried old gentleman on the shoulders 
 and the elbows, to signify his extreme pleasure 
 at this encounter. ' But, Sydney, my dear 
 Mr. Denton ? ' he asked, bending forward and 
 smihng, as he touched the old gentleman's 
 elbows again. ' Sydney is a lonk vay from 
 anyvhere. Eh ! Not ? ' 
 
 ' I am living here,' said the old gentleman, 
 very simply and quietly. His manner was in 
 strange contrast with the other's efflorescence. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' cried the Count, ' you live here ? 
 Oh! So?' 
 
 He seemed disconcerted for the moment, 
 but recovered himself almost immediately. 
 Perhaps he felt it awkward to have offered so 
 warm a welcome to a gentleman whose 
 dwelling-place he had forgotten. 
 
 ' That was a very interesting episode,' 
 said Mr. Denton. ' Tell the story. Count ; it
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 241 
 
 will interest your friends very much, I am 
 quite sure.' 
 
 Mr. Denton was a clean-shaven old gentle- 
 man with a hawkisli nose. He was deli- 
 berately old-fashioned in dress, and adhered 
 still to the tall collars and the stock which 
 had been the mode in his youth. He had a 
 habit of crossing his two forefingers whilst he 
 talked, and a look of ticking off his phrases 
 and opinions. His face was kindly, but he 
 looked as sharp as a needle. The carriage of 
 the head — shoulders drooping and chin poked 
 up a little — gave him the air of a man wilhng 
 to pry into things. It was hard not to credit 
 him with more than a fair share of curiosity — 
 impossible not to credit him with at least a 
 fair share of sagacity. Perhaps it was only 
 manner, but he perked his chin and cocked 
 his sagacious eye at the fat German in a way 
 which seemed to convey something of a chal- 
 lenge. 
 
 ' Yell,' said Count von Herder, ' it is a 
 little story. Mr. Hawthorne was ropt at his 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 2j2 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 hotel. Somebody valked into his betroom 
 and stole all his money and all his chewels. 
 He made a row about it, of course, and the 
 landlord refused to pelieve him. He said it 
 was a tevice to escape from paying his pill. 
 The young chentleman was furious. There 
 was a noisy quarrel. TJ^.e police were brought 
 in. I happened to enter at the moment. I 
 addressed them all and calmed them. I said, 
 "I am a chentleman, and Avhen I see a chen- 
 tleman I know him. What is the amount of 
 the pill? " They told me. It was a drifle— 
 twenty or thirty bounds. I took the money 
 from my pocket-book, I paid the pill. There 
 was an end of the matter.' 
 
 ' Not exactly the end, I should suppose/ 
 said Mr. Denton. ' That little service should 
 have made Hawthorne very much your 
 friend.' 
 
 ' Of course,' said von Herder. ' Of course.' 
 
 ' I remember,' pursued the old gentleman, 
 
 that when I got to Berlin next day I found 
 
 him quite boiling over with gratitude. He
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 243 
 
 was little more than a lad at that time. Very 
 generous, very grateful to anybody \t1io 
 served him ; very confiding. Extremely 
 confiding. Now don't you think, Count, that 
 he was really a little bit too confiding ? ' 
 
 ' It is a garacderisdig of youth,' said the 
 Count, smilingly. ' A very lofely point of 
 garacder. There is nothing I admire so much 
 as simplicity.' 
 
 ' I know it, my dear Count,' said Denton, 
 ' I was sure of it before you spoke. By the 
 way, you spent some trouble in trying to find 
 the thief, didn't you ? ' 
 
 ' Yell, yes,' said Von Herder, ' nadurally ; 
 I was interested. I set the police to watch, 
 but nothing came of it.' 
 
 ' Nothing ? ' said Denton. 
 
 ' Nothing,' echoed the Count. 
 
 ' That was a bit of a pity, wasn't it ? 
 You'd naturally have liked to have had the 
 rascal caught.' 
 
 ' I think,' said the Count, ' that we were 
 all equally interested.' 
 
 b2
 
 244 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' Very likely. Oh ! by the way. Count, 
 when can you spare me five minutes ? ' 
 
 ' I am at your service, my goot Mr. 
 Denton, at any moment. Shall we say now? ' 
 
 ' Thank you very much,' said the old 
 gentleman, ' I should like a word with you.' 
 
 The Count seized his hat with a flourish, 
 bringing both heels together at the same 
 instant, and having thus made his adieux to 
 the little knot of listeners, he laid an affec- 
 tionate hand upon Denton's shoulder and 
 swaggered off with him across the lawn. 
 
 ' Count Wolfgang von Herder,' said Mr. 
 Denton, 'you had better go.' 
 
 'My dear, goot outspoken Denton,' the 
 Count answered, ' you are quite mistaken. 
 You inoculated our esteemed and mutual 
 younk friend with certain opinions to my 
 prechutice. Very well. Now I am going to 
 show you that our younk friend is amenable 
 to reason. Mr. Michael Hawthorne is apout 
 to introduce me to the Covernor.' 
 
 ' Indeed,' said Denton, looking up at him
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 245 
 
 half humorously, half disdainfully. ' Who 
 says so ? ' 
 
 ' I say so,' returned Yon Herder ; ' I am in 
 a position to clear myself absolutely of the 
 absurdt charge you prought against me. I 
 condescent to clear myself — it is a conde- 
 scension, mindt you — because I like the boy, 
 and because he can be useful to me. Here I 
 know nopody. He knows everypody. You 
 know my little social vays — eh ? I hate to be 
 py myself. I do not like my own gompany.' 
 
 ' Nobody cares greatly for your company,' 
 said Denton. ' The owner of this house is my 
 very good old friend. I don't know how he 
 came to be inveigled into giving you an 
 invitation, but I'll take care that this is your 
 last; 
 
 'My dear goot sir,' returned the Count, 
 ' you do not guess how much you are mis- 
 taken.* He smiled with great sweetness, and 
 bent forward to touch the old gentleman once 
 more on both elbows. ' You shall see with 
 your own eyes. Mr. Michael Hawthorne will
 
 246 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 introduce me at the reception at Government 
 House to-morrow. He will introduce me to 
 the Governor personally as his dear friendt. 
 He will introduce me to Gheneral Mallard. 
 He will introduce me to Gheneral Mallard's 
 lofely daughter. You shall see how far 
 repentance for unjust suspicion will carry 
 him.' 
 
 ' Will you kindly consider yourself for the 
 meantime as being ordered off this ground ? ' 
 asked Denton. ' Or shall I give the servants 
 instructions for your removal ? ' 
 
 ' Now, now, now ! ' cried Yon Herder, with 
 a most amiable smile. ' Yy should we talk 
 like this ? I tell you, my dear goot friendt, 
 that to-morrow Mr. Hawthorne will retract his 
 suspicions to you, and will introduce me to 
 the first society of the city. Yy not vait and 
 see ? Eh ? Is it not reason aple .^ ' 
 
 'I wish you good day, Gount von Herder,' 
 said the old gentleman with remarkable dry- 
 ness. ' I shall take steps for your immediate 
 removal.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 247 
 
 ' Fery well,' cried the Count, apparently 
 unmoved. ' Fery well, my dear Denton. You 
 shall do exactly what you like, but really you 
 are too imbetuous ! ' 
 
 Mr. Denton marched off without further 
 words, and the Count watched him as he 
 crossed the lawn to where the host was stand- 
 ing in the centre of a little group of men, 
 for whom a liveried servant Avas in the act 
 of pouring out claret cup from a large silver 
 
 ' A word with you,* cried Denton, and the 
 master of the place slid apart to him, glass in 
 hand ; a cheery, beaming man, who looked 
 very much at home, and at the same time 
 extremely foreign to his surroundings. 
 
 'What's the row, old fellow?' he de- 
 manded. 'Have a drink. Horton, bring a 
 glass to Mr. Denton. What is it, Denton?' 
 
 ' You know that fellow yonder who calls 
 himself Count von Herder ? ' 
 
 ' I hear he's a friend of General Mallard's. 
 That's all I know about him.'
 
 248 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 * Do you know who saj^s he's a friend of 
 General Mallard's ? ' 
 
 ' Why, he told me so hhnself. Is there 
 anything wrong about the fellow ? ' 
 
 ' He inaugurated his acquaintance with 
 me by robbing a friend of mine of a thousand 
 pounds in money and jewellery, and then by 
 lending him enough to pay his hotel bill. 
 I've just told him that I'd give the servants 
 instructions for his removal.' 
 
 ' No, no, Denton, we won't have a row. 
 I'll tell him. Come along.' 
 
 The host was a huge burly man with a 
 long beard streaked with grey, and a face 
 tanned with many years' exposure to the sun. 
 His accent had a touch of mid-England in it, 
 and his whole bearing was that of a man who 
 was accustomed to have his way and to be 
 regarded as one in authority. 
 
 'I think,' said Denton, 'you had better 
 authorise me to speak to the fellow and to 
 take one of the servants to him. I'll guarantee 
 that there shall be no scene.'
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 249 
 
 ' Oh ! ' cried the host, ' Til fix the fellow. 
 Come "with me.' 
 
 They marched across the lawn together to 
 where Count von Herder awaited the on- 
 coming of tlie foe with a self-composure 
 almost perfect. There was perhaps too much 
 swagger in it, but there was hardly a sign of 
 embarrassment in his face, and the smile with 
 which he treated Denton was really very 
 natural to look at. An innocent man might 
 have worn it under such a charo-e as was 
 being brought against him : but an innocent 
 man would have needed a o-reat deal of 
 humour and courage, and perhaps a little 
 more practice than innocence would be likely 
 to acquire. 
 
 'Look here, Denton,' said the host, as they 
 crossed the lawn too-ether towards the smiling; 
 Von Herder, ' is there any chance of your 
 beincf mistaken ? ' 
 
 ' Xo,' said Denton, with an almost snapping 
 distinctness, ' none whatever.'
 
 2SO TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' All right,' said the other, ' I'll root him 
 out at once. Look here ' — this to the Count, 
 who raised his hat and drew his heels to- 
 gether, ' I'm told you're a scoundrel, and I 
 think you'd better shift.' 
 
 'Pardon me,' said the Count, with an air 
 of great curiosity, ' you're told I am ' 
 
 ' A scoundrel.' The host was so obliging 
 as to repeat himself. ' And I think you'd 
 better shift.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' cried Yon Herder. ' You haf 
 heard that from my goot Denton here.' 
 
 * Exactly,' said Denton. ' He has heard it 
 from me.' 
 
 Prom a little distance the trio looked as 
 amicable as possible. The Count's smile was 
 quite deceptive a yard or two away, and 
 nothing but a little Hush of colour under the 
 eyes, and a slight tendency to a suffusion of 
 blood in the white of the eyes themselves, 
 betrayed a touch of discomfiture. The host 
 had carried a glass of claret cup with him,
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 251 
 
 and sipped at it calmly as lie spoke tlie 
 accusing words. 
 
 ' Very well, clientlemen,' said the Count, 
 ' I will go. But I baf told my goot friend 
 Denton already that Mr. ^Michael Hawthorne 
 will Avithdraw his charge against me and will 
 apologise.' 
 
 '^Ir. who?" inquired the host. 
 
 Denton, without answering, for the in- 
 quiry was addressed to him, turned to the 
 Count with an air of sudden angry deter- 
 mination. 
 
 ' If you speak one other word here, sir, 
 I will have you thrown out by the servants. 
 Go ! ' 
 
 The Count raised his hat, bowed, turned, 
 and walked away. 
 
 ' Michael Hawthorne ? ' said the host. 
 ' What did he mean about ^lichael Haw- 
 thorne .^ ' 
 
 'Take it quietly. Barton,' said Denton, 
 passing an arm through his. ' Take it quietly.
 
 252 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 I meant to have told you before. He's 
 here.' 
 
 'Here? Where .^ ' 
 
 ' Quiet yourself for Heaven's sake, there's 
 a good fellow. There he stands, talking to 
 the Governor.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 253 
 
 CHAPTEE XIY 
 
 Tom Bartox, with Denton's warning hand 
 upon his arm, turned and looked at the group 
 of which the Governor was the centre. En- 
 gaged in animated conversation with the great 
 man was a bright-looking, handsome young 
 fellow of six-and-twenty, elegantly but not 
 foppishly attired, and evidently at his ease in 
 the society in which he stood. His face was 
 turned towards Barton, and at something the 
 Governor said he lauglied. At that instant a 
 likeness to his mother flashed out in the 
 young man's face with a distinctness so 
 amazing that the father started at it. Denton's 
 grip tightened on his arm. 
 
 'Do nothing rash. Think over what you 
 mean to do. Come with me.'
 
 254 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 Barton took no heed at all, but kept his 
 gaze fixed on the stranger who was so near 
 and dear to him. That curious instinct of the 
 eye which so often warns us of a fixed regard 
 brought Hawthorne's gaze upon his unknown 
 father, and the young man regarded the elder 
 with a momentary astonishment. Barton saw 
 this, and turned away, and Denton felt his 
 arm tremble like a shaken twig. 
 
 ' Come with me,' he urged again, and this 
 time he was obeyed. 
 
 The old barrister led his host across the 
 lawn, and through an open French window, 
 into a quiet room which looked out upon a 
 portion of the lawn where, for the time being, 
 none of the visitors were standing. He closed 
 the French window quietly, and turned upon 
 his friend with a look in wdiich commiseration 
 and apology were blended. 
 
 'Barton,' he said gently, ' you're not your- 
 self for the moment. You've had a greater 
 shock than you're yet aware of.' 
 
 Barton's hands were shaking. His breath
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 255 
 
 came hard and fast, and liis face, tanned as it 
 was, had grown strangely pale. 
 
 Tm all right,' he made shift to say. 
 'Dont take any notice of me ; give me just a 
 minute.' 
 
 He took half-a-dozen turns about the room, 
 resolutely controlling himself, and then, walk- 
 ing to a sideboard, poured out and drank a 
 glass of water. 
 
 'Now,' he said, squaring his shoulders 
 and diving his hands deep into his pockets. 
 
 ' I've told you,' said Denton, ' that if I 
 could have found or made an opportunity I 
 would have warned you, but I only knew of 
 Michael's presence in Australia two hours 
 ago. He wrote to me saying that he was 
 coming out, but I only received his letter this 
 afternoon. You know I've been up country 
 for a while, and only returned to-day.' 
 
 ' What brincrs him here ? ' asked Barton. 
 
 The mere words sounded curt and careless, 
 and the speaker had forced himself to a reso- 
 lute conomonplace of tone, but his companion
 
 256 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 could yet see and understand the agitation 
 under which he laboured. 
 
 ' He came out,' Denton answered — * so I 
 gathered from his letter — but perhaps you'd 
 better read it for yourself.' He unbuttoned 
 his prim frock-coat and drew a letter from the 
 breast pocket. I'd meant to show it to you 
 before,' he said quietly. ' Perhaps you had 
 better see it now.' 
 
 Barton drew his hand from his pocket and 
 accepted the letter. The paper rustled in his 
 grasp as he walked with it to the window and 
 stood with his back to the light to read it. 
 The letter was dated from a hotel in London, 
 and ran thus : — 
 
 'My dear Guaedian, — You will be — I 
 haven't the slightest doubt of it in the world 
 — amazed to learn that I am starting for 
 Australia, and that I follow this letter by the 
 next mail. Perhaps I shall lessen your amaze- 
 ment by telling you that General Mallard has 
 accepted a commission from the Government to
 
 TIME'S RF.VEXGES 257 
 
 inspect the colonial defences, and is travelling 
 in the same vessel with myself. When I last 
 saw you I took you into my confidence with 
 respect to a matter in which you were good 
 enough to express the kindliest interest and 
 the most friendly hopes. You advised me to 
 wait and make quite sure of my own mind and 
 heart. I have never known your advice to 
 be wrong yet, and I accepted it then, as I 
 always have done. I have waited, and I can't 
 say honestly that my belief in the truth of my 
 own sentiments has increased. Frankly, I 
 don't believe that an increase was possible. I 
 know my own mind no better than I did six 
 months ago, but I don't desire to know it 
 better. In plain English, my dear guardian, 
 I am convinced that the happiness of my life 
 is bound up in this matter, and I am not 
 without hopes that the General will regard 
 my suit with favour. He seems to be as well- 
 disposed to me as I might wish. As to Miss 
 Mallard herself, I am in alternate despair and 
 hope. You are so resolute an old bachelor 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 yourself that I can't offer you the sentimental 
 confidences which a more sentimental person 
 might easily elicit from me. I can only tell 
 you this, that the idea of being out of Miss 
 Mallard's sight and mind for twelve months 
 seems altogether unbearable to me. I have 
 pretended business in Australia, and have told 
 the General that I am eager to have a look at 
 that Tasmanian mine which yields me so hand- 
 some a return. Honestly, I am not in the 
 least eager to see the Tasmanian mine, but I 
 shall have to make at least a pretence of 
 looking at it. I will not speak if I can help 
 it until I have seen you, but on that matter I 
 shall not pledge myself. Within a week of 
 your receipt of this I shall hope to meet you 
 in Sydney. And I am now as ever, 
 ' Gratefully and affectionately yours, 
 
 ' Michael Hawthorne.' 
 
 The stiff paper on which the letter was 
 written quivered unceasingly in Barton's hands. 
 Twice or thrice in the reading of it, brief as it
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 259 
 
 was, he paused and passed a hand across his 
 eyes as if to clear his vision. Each time he 
 shook his head with a certain air of dogged 
 resolution, and when he had finished he 
 handed the paper back to Denton, and fell to 
 walking up and down the room again. 
 
 'Who is this General Mallard?' Barton 
 asked in a little while. 
 
 ' General Mallard,' said Denton, ' is the 
 man who was injured in that poaching affray 
 in which you were supposed to be concerned 
 more than thirty years ago.' 
 
 Barton stopped in his heavy, solid stride, 
 turned one enigmatical look on his companion, 
 and went on again. 
 
 ' Then he's in love with that man's 
 daughter ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' said Denton, ' he's in love with that 
 man's daughter.' 
 
 Barton gave an inarticulate grunt and 
 quickened his step a little. Denton, with his 
 head perked on one side and a hand on either 
 lapel of his coat, as if he were in the act of
 
 26o TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 folding himself up like a peculiarly delicate 
 and fragile parcel, watched him but said 
 nothing. 
 
 ' What sort of a chap is he, this General 
 Mallard?' Barton asked, bringing himself to 
 a sudden halt. ' Chip off the old block, 
 eh?' 
 
 ' No,' said Denton. ' Not at all a chip of 
 the old block. He's a very gallant and 
 accomplished officer. Victoria cross man. 
 Has distinguished himself a dozen times in 
 action, and is a great favourite in the 
 county.' 
 
 ' H'm,' said Barton. ' I hear from Sir 
 Ferdinand now and again. He tells me 
 nothing of him.' 
 
 ' I dare say,' Denton answered, ' that Sir 
 Ferdinand imagines the theme might be dis- 
 agreeable to you, and avoids it on that 
 ground. It is, however, as I tell you. There 
 is no one more popular, no one more esteemed 
 or liked. The General is not a very brilliant 
 fellow, and is a very high and dry old Tory,
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 261 
 
 but he's a thoroughly honourable and good- 
 hearted man, and is universally esteemed. 
 He has altogether lived down the memory of 
 his father.' 
 
 ' H'm,' Sciid Barton again; and with that, 
 diving his hands once more into his pockets, 
 set out afresh upon his stolid walk to and 
 fro. 
 
 ' And the girl — what's she like ? ' he asked, 
 halting as abruptly as before. 
 
 ' She is here to-day,' Denton answered. ' A 
 charming girl — high-spirited, noble-minded, a 
 shade romantic, perjiaps — not foolishly so, 
 but still, a shade romantic' 
 
 ' A good girl ? ' asked Barton. 
 
 ' Thoroughly,' said Denton. 
 
 ' Look here ! ' Barton demanded, taking 
 his companion by the shoulders and bending 
 over him until their faces almost touched, 
 ' what's going to be done ? ' 
 
 ' My dear friend,' Denton answered, ' that's 
 your affair — you must resolve on that.' 
 
 'Yes,' Tom answered, straightening him-
 
 262 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 self ; ' I must resolve on tliat. Let's look at 
 tilings a bit. Sit clown, Denton.' 
 
 Denton obeyed, and his host, taking a 
 chair from the side of the room, whisked it 
 over to where he sat, and planted it rather 
 noisily before him. His prodigious personal 
 strength showed itself as clearly in this slight 
 action as if he had lifted a thousand times 
 the chair's weio'ht. He handled it as if it 
 were a feather. 
 
 'Now,' he said, seating himself; 'let's 
 look at things. The fact is, Denton, I've 
 been a fool. I let myself be over-persuaded 
 by the missis. I can't disregard her feelin's. 
 She's been a good wife to me, Denton. A 
 good, good wife ; God never blessed man with 
 a better. But she made a great mistake, and 
 I was fool enough to let her make it. We 
 never should ha' parted wi' the boy.' 
 
 ' That,' said Denton, ' was my opinion 
 from the first : but I saw your reasons for 
 it clearly, and I know liow unselfish they 
 were.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 263 
 
 ' Why, as for bein' unselfish,' Barton an- 
 ST\'ered ; ' what's to be expected when a man's 
 deahn' with bis own flesh and b^ood P But, 
 all the same, 'twas a mistake. Look here, 
 if I'd never parted with him, he'd have found 
 himself just as much respected as he is at 
 this minute ; he'd have found himself as 
 plain Tom Barton's son, as good a man as 
 he is now, with every bit as good chances 
 in the world.' 
 
 ' That's so, Barton,' Denton answered, 
 wagging ]iis head sorrowfully ; ' that's so.' 
 
 ' But then, you see,' Tom pursued, slowly 
 and weightily arguing the case out to him- 
 self, rather than with his companion, ' me 
 and his mother never guessed it'd be so, or 
 could be so. We thought the mud was 
 going to stick for ever. It hasn't stuck, 
 Denton. I can look everybody in the face, 
 and no man points a finger at me. There's 
 two or three here in the same boat with 
 me. There's two or three living in the 
 same kind o' glass-house, and there's no
 
 264 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 stone-throwing allowed ; but all that apart, 
 the thino^'s foro-ot.' 
 
 ' My dear fellow,' said Denton, ' I know 
 there's no man in the colonies more highly 
 respected than yourself. If you had never 
 parted with your son, he would have had 
 advantages just as great as those he now 
 enjoys. But that is not the question. You 
 want to decide what you are to do noAv.' 
 
 'That's pretty easy,' Barton answered, 
 taking firm hold of his beard in both hands, 
 and tugging strongly at it. ' If I was to tell 
 the boy the truth to-day, and if he was to 
 come back to me, the folks would want to 
 know why. I should have to tell the whole 
 story ; I should fix the old ticket on again — 
 the " Convict Millionaire ! " I can't do it, for 
 his sake, Denton.' 
 
 ' No,' Denton assented, ' you can't do it, 
 for his sake. The disguise has been worn 
 too long.' 
 
 Barton sat leaning forward, with his elbows 
 on his knees and his beard in his hands.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 265 
 
 stariDg with a calm intentness at the other. 
 Suddenly he arose with a start and clapped 
 his hands together. 
 
 ' His mother,' he cried, with a voice of 
 great agitation. ' Good Heavens I what a 
 fool I am ! If his mother sees his face 
 and hears his name, she'll know him in a 
 minute.' 
 
 He tore the French window open and 
 made a step out on to the lawn, but, checking 
 himself, suddenly returned. 
 
 'I can't go,' he said, ' Ini not fit to face 
 her. Go you, Denton, and ask her to come 
 here, there's a good fellow. Bring her away 
 quiet.' 
 
 ' Good,' said Denton, and witliout another 
 word left the apartment. 
 
 Barton walked up and down like a caged 
 creature, pausing now and then to wring his 
 hands together. He hardly knew as yet how 
 profoundly he was agitated. The boy had 
 been always a kind of angel-vision to him. 
 He had never grown any older, or taller, or
 
 266 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 stronger than he had been when the Dog- 
 dyke's had taken charge of hhn, and borne hhn 
 to England, all those years ago. A little 
 blue-eyed, tow-headed, merry fellow, tumbling 
 hither and thither, busily intent on his infan- 
 tile concerns, always ready for a game at 
 romps, or a ride on the father's shoulders. 
 Now he was back again, a grown man and a 
 stranger, within a score of yards of the father 
 whose heart yearned after him, and yet 
 ignorant of his very existence. If Barton had 
 followed his own way he would have gone out 
 and taken him in his arms before them all. 
 There was an actual pain — an actual physical 
 pain — in his very arms, as he reached them 
 out in the air as if to clasp his boy. He 
 stopped his walk suddenly, and stood with 
 bent head and clenched teeth. He made a 
 clumsy downward motion with both hands, 
 again and again repeated, and muttered to 
 himself in a choked voice, that this would 
 not do — this would not do at all. He thought 
 of his wife, and of the suffering this strange
 
 7 IMF'S REVEXGES 267 
 
 accident would bring lier, and the tears 
 gathered thickly in his eyes. He brushed 
 them away, and strode up and down again. 
 Denton returned, and seeing him thus en- 
 gaged, spoke by way of warning : — 
 
 ' This way, Mrs. Barton.' 
 
 Tom stopped in his agitated promenade, 
 and stood with both hands half extended, to 
 await his wife. She came in flushed and 
 smiling, and looking distinctly handsome. 
 She was fashionably dressed, and very unlike 
 the Mary Barton of old days ; but tlie good 
 kind face had hardly changed at all. There 
 was a little grey in her hair and a few lines 
 were traced upon her forehead ; but Time, on 
 the whole, had dealt tenderly with her, and 
 her eyes were as bright and her clieek was 
 as firm and rosy as of old. A handsome 
 matronly-looking woman in early middle age, 
 all her charms fully ripened and none as yet 
 decayed. She had been amongst ladies in her 
 early life, and with the quick facility of imi- 
 tation which distinguishes her sex, she had
 
 268 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 caught sometliing of their manner and bearing. 
 Part of that had been rubbed away in the 
 rougher hfe of Tasmania, but with prosperous 
 settled city hfe the old manner had come 
 back again, had even been improved upon, 
 and now sat easily upon her. She looked 
 every inch a lady, but when she spoke there 
 still lingered on her tongue a touch of the old 
 countrified mid-England drawl. 
 
 ' Wliy, Tom,' she said, catching sight of 
 her husband's face, ' what's the matter? You 
 look quite put out.' 
 
 Denton had withdrawn, and had closed 
 the French window behind him. He gave 
 a little sidelong nod at Tom as he walked 
 away. 
 
 ' Sit down, my dear,' said the husband, 
 taking both her hands in his, and speaking in 
 a shaken voice. 
 
 ' Don't frighten me, Tom,' she said, half 
 in jest and half in earnest. ' Tell me what 
 has happened. I declare you're trembling.' 
 
 ' Sit down, my dear,' Tom answered. He
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 269 
 
 spoke witli a gravity so weighty that she 
 instantly obeyed him, and took the chair 
 which Denton had a few minutes before 
 vacated. Tom, leaning heavily on the chair 
 he himself had occupied, and grasping the 
 top of it with both hands, looked down at 
 her. 
 
 ' My dear,' he said, ' I've had strange news.' 
 
 ' Bad news P ' she asked . 
 
 He read a little flash of courage' in lier 
 eyes which seemed to say that, whatever it 
 might be, she would be prepared to meet it. 
 
 ' It isn't bad news, my dear,' he answered, 
 ' but it's what I said it was — strange news. 
 Brace yourself up, my dear. Denton's had a 
 letter from Michael — from our boy.' 
 
 She rose and came close to him. 
 
 ' Yes ? ' she said. 
 
 ' The lad writes Denton that he's comin* to 
 Australia. He was to follow his letter in a 
 week. He talks about coming to Sydney.' 
 
 ' Yes ? ' said Mary. 
 
 'Denton,' pursued Tom, 'didn't get the
 
 270 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 letter for awhile, and had no chance of 
 preparing ns till to-day.' 
 
 ' No ? ' she said, in mechanical assent. 
 
 Tom saw that her mind was half- stunned 
 by the intelligence, and that she did not fully 
 grasp what he was saying. He put an arm 
 about her waist, and leading her back to the 
 chair from which she had arisen, knelt down 
 beside her, and took her hands in his. 
 
 ' My dear, Michael's in Australia. He's in 
 Sydney. If you'd like to see him you can at 
 almost any minute. I've been thinkin', darlin',. 
 we can t undo, now, what we've done. To let 
 on that he belongs to us would just wake up 
 the old story. We must let it sleep, my dear. 
 We must let it sleep.' 
 
 ' He's here in Sydney ? ' she asked, tremu- 
 lously. 
 
 ' Yes, my dear. He's in Sydney. I've — 
 I've seen him.' 
 
 ' You've seen him ? ' she answered, with a 
 faint, quick cry. ' Seen him ? He's here> 
 Tom ! Here ! '
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 271 
 
 ' Yes, my darlinV Tom answered, • he's 
 here — on the lawn. Keep cool, old girl ! 
 Have a good heart I I know what it's been to 
 you all these years, and I know what it's been 
 to me. We've suffered, both of us, and we've 
 got to suffer ; but, darlin', he's a handsome 
 lad — he's as hke you as he can be. I saw 
 him talkin' to the Governor just now, and 
 somethin' made him smile. He looked at me 
 just then, and it was like your own face, my 
 dear. Just hke your own face ! ' 
 
 He had his arms about her by this time, 
 and her head was resting on his shoulder. 
 Neither of them knew it, but they were both 
 crying silently. 
 
 ' Tom ! ' she said, ' I must see him. I must 
 see him.' 
 
 ' Come with me,' said Tom.
 
 272 TIME'S REVEXGES 
 
 CHAPTEE XV 
 
 Tom opened the door leading to tlie inner 
 portion of the house, and, looking guiltily 
 about him to see that the way was clear, 
 beckoned to her to follow. They stole, thief- 
 like, on tip-toe along a corridor, up a flight of 
 stairs, and into a room which overlooked the 
 big marquee and the glittering crowd of 
 visitors. Tom closed and locked the door 
 and led his wife to the window. To their 
 tear-blurred eyes the bright sun-ht toilets and 
 coloured parasols of the ladies shivered and 
 changed like the patterns in a kaleidoscope. 
 But by-and-by things grew clearer. Since 
 Tom had left the lawn the position of parties 
 had changed, and for a while his eye sought 
 the figure of his son in vain. At length he 
 discerned him standing at some distance, talk-
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 273 
 
 ing to a pretty and engaging girl, who was a 
 stranger to the host. He drew his wife to his 
 side and pointed. 
 
 'YoLi see them two,' he said, falhng un- 
 consciously back into the broadest accent of 
 his youth ; ' them two out there — that bit of 
 a wench in blue — all in light blue — boots and 
 frock and gloves and everything, out there in 
 a straight line with the gate ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' his wife whispered faintly. 
 
 ' That's him,' said Tom, in a husky whisper, 
 ' that's him talkiniT to her.' 
 
 They drew closer yet together, and their 
 eyes gloated on their boy, who, ignorant of 
 their gaze and even of their existence, stood 
 talking and listening with an air of great 
 gaiety and animation. 
 
 ' Tom,' said Mary. 
 
 'Mary,' said Tom. 
 
 The mother began to sob. 
 
 ' Tom,' she said, 'he mustn't go away any 
 more.' 
 
 Barton was silent, and she cast one swift, 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 eloquent, despairing glance at him. If it had 
 not been for his supporting arm she would 
 have fallen. 
 
 ' I know,' she went on brokenly, ' I know, 
 Tom, it's all mad and silly, but oh, I am his 
 mother after all. It's hard that he should be 
 so near and never know us, never care for us.' 
 She stretched out her arms towards the un- 
 heeding stranger, who v/as yet her child. 
 ' My dear, my dear, if I only dared,' she said. 
 
 In the mother's mind, as in the father's, 
 the child cherished in remembrance had never 
 altered. Theoretically, of course, he had 
 grown up to manhood, and she had striven a 
 hundred thousand times to picture him as he 
 would seem to other eyes. She had had 
 vague images of him at all periods of his Hfe, 
 but they were shadowy, unreal, undefined. 
 A little toddling child shone through all of 
 them ; the tow head and the chubby cheeks, 
 the blue eyes and laughing lips of the baby, 
 the dimpled arms and hands, the roguish 
 little ways, the merry laugh, these shone
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 275 
 
 upon her eyes or sounded in her ears in 
 countless hours of reverie, and now it seemed 
 as if the baby had grown to be a man in a 
 minute. It was curious, and yet natural, that 
 whilst Tom had seen his wife's face in his 
 son's, she saw her husband's there. There 
 was a blended resemblance to them both, one 
 of those subtle tricks of Xature by which she 
 so often preserves a double likeness in a 
 single countenance. 
 
 The young fellow stood very erect and 
 stalwart and lithe, handsome and vivacious, 
 and a pang of maternal pride shot through 
 Mary's heart as she looked at him. Xot 
 even Tom himself in their far-off courting days 
 had ever looked so regal to her. He was taller 
 than his father, and when his figure came to 
 be thoroughly set would be broader in the 
 shoulders. He carried his head rather proudly, 
 she thought, and looked as if he were born to 
 rule mankind. But that came easy to a 
 mother's fancy, and she would certainly have 
 thought it had he grown up beside her. But 
 
 T 2
 
 276 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 now all these impressions were a thousand- 
 fold more keen, and every one was poignant 
 with pain and pleasure. The gay crowd 
 shifted to and fro, and the babble of their 
 voices ascended indistinctly through the 
 French window to the watchers' ears. Michael 
 Hawthorne and his companion stood a little 
 detached from the rest, and in a while began 
 to move away. They sauntered side by side 
 until they reached the gate, and after a little 
 pause passed through the gateway and moved 
 out of sight. 
 
 ' Tom,' said Mary, drying her eyes and 
 speaking in a steadier voice than before, ' I 
 must see him and speak to him. I can't let 
 him go away and never have heard his voice.' 
 
 ' Think what you're doing, dear,' Tom 
 answered solicitously. ' It's a dreadful thing 
 for both of us, but we've made our bed and 
 we must lie on it. It's too late to change it 
 now.' 
 
 ' I know that,' she responded. ' I've 
 suffered for it all these years, and now I must
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 277 
 
 go on Avitli it. It was meant for his good all 
 along, and it must be kept from him now. 
 I'll be brave.' 
 
 'I misdonbt,' said Tom, 'you'll find it too 
 great a trial for your strength.' 
 
 ' Xo, no,' she cried imploringly, ' don't 
 deny me, Tom. Let me have my way in this. 
 He shall never guess anything. He shan't 
 know, I promise you that. You can trust me, 
 Tom.' 
 
 ' Take a little while to think about it, 
 dear,' Tom urged her. ' Take a little while 
 to get ready for it anyhow.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' she answered, ' 111 wait a day or 
 two.' 
 
 'The folks will think it odd,' said Tom, 
 after a lengthy pause, ' that we're both away. 
 I must make a shift to pull myself together, 
 and get down among them. You stop here, 
 my love.' 
 
 He kissed her and stole away to the door, 
 still moving guiltily and as if in fear of detec- 
 tion, and a few minutes later his wife saw him on
 
 278 TIMES REVENGES 
 
 the lawn^mingling with his guests. His sturdy 
 voice reached her ears, and once he laughed 
 loudly and, as she thought, unnaturally. She 
 watched the gateway for half an hour \\\ the 
 hope that Michael would reappear. But he 
 did not return, and in a while the trained 
 resolution of her nature asserted itself and she 
 became once more composed. She removed 
 the traces of her tears, and descended to the 
 lawn. The Governor and his party had 
 arrived some few minutes before Denton had 
 pointed out Michael to Tom Barton, but the 
 young man was not then with them, or the 
 hostess could not have escaped an introduc- 
 tion to him. She was now certain that the 
 name and its owner's resemblance to liis 
 father would have at once enlightened her as 
 to liis identity, and she was devoutly thankful 
 to have escaped the trial. She felt that she 
 could bear it now if it should prove inevitable. 
 Moving amongst her guests she tried to fix a 
 smile upon her face, and to seem as gay and 
 unembarrassed as she actually had been a
 
 TIME'S REVEXGES 279 
 
 little while before. But slie was ghastly pale, 
 and her heart kept a dreadful riot in her 
 breast, and the smile was a miserable failure. 
 
 ' You are ill, Mrs. Barton,' said one of her 
 acquaintances, with a startled voice and look. 
 
 ' Xo, no,' she answered. ' Don't mind me. 
 It will pass ofi'. It's nothing.' 
 
 At this instant Tom, catching sight of her, 
 and understanding clearly the anguish she 
 endured, made his way hurriedly towards her 
 and besought her to retire. They were both 
 so unlike themselves that a general curiosity 
 and fear began to spread. Tongues were 
 hushed and glances half of consternation and 
 half of sympathy were turned towards them. 
 Here and there conversation went on, but in 
 spite of that the silence grew marked, and 
 little by little it deepened. 
 
 ' My dear,' Tom whispered, ' they're all 
 staring at us. You're not fit to be out here. 
 Go back again.' 
 
 At this instant ^lichael Hawthorne and the 
 young lady whom he had before accompanied
 
 28o TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 passed through the gate together and ad- 
 vanced across the lawn. The girl, with a nod 
 and a smile, left him and walked over to 
 General Mallard, who was still in conversation 
 with the Governor. She slid her arm into his, 
 and looked at him affectionately. The General 
 turned for a moment and patted her cheek, 
 and then resumed his speech. Hawthorne 
 walked towards Denton, who, purposely dis- 
 regarding the growing silence, was laying 
 down the law of extradition to a Victorian 
 judge of his acquaintance and arguing stoutly. 
 He had turned his back upon Barton and his 
 wife, and was doing his best to beat down the 
 general uneasy feeling. Hawthorne slid a 
 hand round his elbow and linked his arm with 
 his, as a son might have done with a father. 
 There was a very sincere affection between 
 these two, and Denton looked up with a face 
 which the young man thought was strangely 
 troubled. The old gentleman turned to renew 
 his argument, but his manner was changed, 
 and with it his shrewdness and clearness of
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 281 
 
 statement were none. He bocff^led — faltered 
 — cried back — broke down. 
 
 ' My wits are muddled,' he said testily ; 
 ' I had the whole argument clear a minute 
 back, and now it's gone. Old age I Old age ! ' 
 He tried to o-ive his words a certain whimsical 
 air of humour, and his opponent caught the 
 tone, and laughed. 
 
 'Mr. Denton,' said a voice close by. It 
 was so altered that for a moment he did not 
 know it, and he sfave a nervous start when, 
 turning, he saw Mary Barton's pale face and 
 excited eyes close to his own, and identified 
 her as the speaker. 
 
 'Yes, madame,' he answered. 
 
 ' Won't you introduce your friend to me ? ' 
 she asked. 
 
 He gave her a glance wliicli narrowly 
 escaped betrayal. Hawthorne saw it, and 
 momentarily wondered what might be the 
 meaning of it. 
 
 ' Certainly, Mrs. Barton,' Denton answered, 
 recovering himself suddenly. ' This is our
 
 282 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 hostess, Mrs. Barton, Hawthorne. This, Mrs. 
 Barton, is Michael Hawthorne, once a ward 
 of mine.' 
 
 Hawthorne raised his hat and bowed, but 
 his hostess holding out her hand, he offered 
 his own, and for a little space they stood 
 looking at each other, he, though amazed, 
 with a respectful deference in his air, and she 
 seeming to devour him with her glance. He 
 had never seen a look so strange on human 
 face before, and it puzzled him profoundly, 
 and, in some strange, unintelligible way, 
 moved him as deeply. There was an ineffable 
 appeal and longing in it, or a something which 
 he could only construe in that fashion. She 
 held his hand and gave no sign of surrender- 
 ing it for fully half a minute, and under such 
 circumstances time has a knack of lengthen- 
 ing incredibly. At last she withdrew her 
 hand. 
 
 ' I am very pleased to have met you, Mr. 
 Hawthorne,' she said, in a voice utterly unlike 
 her own. ' Very pleased, indeed.'
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 2S3 
 
 With that she gave an inclination of the 
 head and moved away. Hawthorne. Denton, 
 and the judge looked at each other in aston- 
 ishment. 
 
 ' Strange,' said the judge, turning his head 
 over his shoulder to look at her. 
 
 ' Ah,' said Denton, ' she is very ill, poor 
 creature. Her husband has advised her to 
 retire and rest, but she won't leave her guests. 
 She's one of the dearest women in the Avorld, 
 and we can't afford to lose her. I shall add 
 my counsel to Barton's. They're old friends 
 of mine, and I can venture to take a liberty.' 
 
 Denton moved away, anxious to escape 
 any questions Hawthorne might put to him. 
 He was conscious of a certain querulous in- 
 dicfnation ac^ainst ^Mi's. Barton for havins; 
 risked such an encounter so soon after the 
 receipt of the intelHgence her husband had 
 conveyed to her. He had a high opinion 
 of her ; but it was tinctured by a confirmed 
 old bachelor's views of the sex in general. 
 His interference was not needed, for Mary,
 
 284 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 taking her husband's arm, had returned to 
 the house, and did not reappear. He hn- 
 gered with various knots of people, cliatting 
 disjointedly, and of a set purpose avoided 
 Hawthorne. But the young man pursued 
 him, and at Last took renewed possession of 
 him by the arm. 
 
 ' You must ask me to dine wdth you to- 
 night,' he said, 'unless you are engaged 
 already. I've something that I wish par- 
 ticularly to say to you.' 
 
 ' ^^ery good, my boy ; very good,' re- 
 turned Denton. 
 
 Hawthorne drew him a little on one side, 
 and began, as Denton had feared he would, 
 to question him. 
 
 ' The lady,' he said, ' to whom you in- 
 troduced me just now ? wasn't there some- 
 thing very strange in her manner ? ' 
 
 ' She's not w^ell ; she's not well,' the old 
 gentleman answered, with a purposed note 
 of irritation in his tone. 
 
 But did you observe,' asked Hawthorne,
 
 TIME-'S REVENGES 285 
 
 ' how Strangely she looked at me ? Is she 
 
 quite ' He paused there as if afraid to 
 
 employ the word he had in his mind. 
 
 ' Xo,' snapped Denton ; ' she's not at all 1 
 Not in the slightest ! Xot in the least de- 
 gree ! Xonsense ! Absurd ! You don't know 
 her. A better woman never breathed. A 
 clearer-headed woman never lived. She's 
 unwell, poor thing.' 
 
 ' My dear sir,' began Hawthorne, in a 
 half-laughing protestation against Denton's 
 angry tone. 
 
 ' My dear Michael,' returned Denton, 
 • we'll say no more about it. The poor lady 
 is ill, and ought not to have been here 
 at all. She's enduring a great anguish, to 
 my personal knowledge.' 
 
 With that he disencfaged himself, and 
 walked away in search of the Victorian 
 judge, with whom he immediately renewed 
 his argument. Hawthorne, lingering alone, 
 fell into a brown study. The memory of that 
 strange look haunted him, and do what he
 
 286 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 would, he could not banish it from his mind. 
 He could see it as clearly as if it were in 
 actual presence before him, and he could 
 read in it no sign of bodily suffering. He 
 could find nothing in it, but that strange 
 appeal and longing Avhich it had at first and 
 at once conveyed to his mind. Somehow, in 
 a dim, confused fashion, he thought the face 
 familiar ; the expression it had worn, and still 
 wore, for him, was absolutely not, but the 
 face itself was, surely, surely. He dived into 
 the recesses of his memory, but could not 
 recall any face of which it reminded him. 
 But the truth was that in his mother's fea- 
 tures he had caught a reflection of his own, 
 and if he had known enough to have sent 
 him to a consultation with his mirror, he 
 would have found there what he sought for 
 elsewhere in vain.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 287 
 
 CHAPTEE XYI 
 
 Shortly after this Hawthorne succeeded in 
 leading Miss Mallard away from the crowd. 
 It was done by a series of carefully arranged 
 little accidents. The gardens had plenty of 
 wandering walks and shady places, and the 
 bulk of the visitors held by the lawn, where 
 the rank and fashion had their centres, and 
 by the big marquee which held the refresh- 
 ments. 
 
 Miss Mallard was a charming girl, who 
 had views and opinions of her own on all 
 manner of things. She was full of ideas, 
 which, without being very clearly defined 
 perhaps, influenced her character and action 
 strongly. She liked to believe that if she had 
 been born in Eussia she would have been on 
 the popular and less safe of the two unsafe
 
 288 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 sides, and she thought that martyrdom in the 
 great cause of freedom was an enviable thing. 
 She had imbibed a good deal of the modern 
 socialistic doctrine, only she was for levelling 
 up instead of down, and for putting twelve 
 eggs into everybody's basket without the dis- 
 agreeable preliminary of robbing anybody's 
 hen-roost. She had read and thought and 
 felt a great deal, and her political ideas were 
 all lovable, and all naively impossible for any 
 time prior to the millennium. She believed 
 ardently in the equality of the sons and 
 daughters of Adam, but she could not help 
 having been born and bred a lady. Vulgarity 
 hurt her, and it happened often that her 
 theories and her feelings were at war. She 
 was gracious and gentle to everybody, but that 
 was probably less due to political conviction 
 than to the sincere cordiality and sw^eetness 
 of her nature. Hawthorne was pleased to 
 know that Miss Mallard thought little of the 
 rights and privileges of birth. He had never 
 imagined for a moment that his fortune, large
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 289 
 
 as it was, Avoiild have much impression on 
 her, and though he had been bred hke a 
 gentlemen, he had a curious uncertainty 
 about his family origin. 
 
 ' I have always thought you were an 
 Englishman, Mr. Hawthorne,' the girl was 
 saying. 
 
 ' No,' he answered, ' I was born in Tas- 
 mania.' 
 
 * I've not seen Tasmania,' she said, brightly. 
 ' Tell me something about it.' 
 
 ' I know nothing,' Hawthorne responded. 
 'I was sent away when I was two years old. 
 It is rather an odd history ; would it bore you 
 very much if I spoke about it? ' 
 
 ' Xo, indeed,' she responded. ' I should 
 like to hear.' 
 
 The words were spoken with a candid 
 simplicity which at once charmed and pained 
 him. If she had cared as much to hear as he 
 would have liked her to care, he thought, 
 she might have been 1g:s ready to express an 
 interest. 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 ' I was an orphan at two years old. An 
 old convict, but a splendid fellow, and a man 
 who, as it seems, was actually known to be 
 innocent of the crime with which he was 
 charged, was my father's partner. He saved 
 me from a flood which swept away father, 
 mother, and everybody. Only old Tom and 
 his wife and I came alive out of it,' he con- 
 tinued. 
 
 ' He must have made a strange nurse for 
 a child, Mr. Hawthorne.' 
 
 ' It seems that he made a very good one. 
 He and my father had bought a considerable 
 stretcli of land. It turned out to be rich in 
 cinnabar and silver. Old Tom floated a com- 
 pany, and kept most of the shares for himself 
 and me. That is where all my money comes 
 from.' 
 
 ' Did he manage your aflairs honestly ? ' 
 
 ' He managed them with scrupulous fidelity 
 from first to last. He might have taken every 
 penny that I had, and nobody would have 
 been tlie wiser. He might have shipped me
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 291 
 
 away to England, and sent money enough to 
 clothe and feed me in the simplest way, and 
 still have seemed a benefactor.' 
 
 ' He must have been a very noble fellow. 
 Is he still alive P ' Miss Mallard asked him. 
 
 ' He is still alive, and is living at this time, 
 I fancy, in this very colony. Mr. Denton 
 knows him personally, and I must get him to 
 give me his address.' 
 
 'It is a strange story, Mr. Hawthorne.' 
 
 ' Yes, it's a strange story — it's all strange. 
 There can't be many men with so bewildering 
 a history behind them as I have. Do you 
 know, Miss Mallard, I have tried my best, in 
 England, this last five years to find out where 
 my father and mother came from, and I've 
 met with nothing but blank failures. I'm 
 here, and I've got a pot of money, and that's 
 all that's known about me. It's all I know 
 about myself There never was a man who 
 had less chance of finding a pedigree.' 
 
 She prompted him by no further questions, 
 and they walked on, side by side, in silence. 
 
 u 2
 
 292 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 The sun's rays fell slantwise now, and the 
 headlands took a richer colour. The wasli of 
 the waters reached their ears : the sky was 
 without a cloud. Miss Mallard's eyes dreamed 
 on the horizon, and every now and again 
 Hawthorne stole a look at her. She seemed 
 unconscious of his presence, and he thought 
 that her fancies, whatever they might be, were 
 far away from him. Presently they left the 
 inclosure into which they had sauntered, and 
 came upon a broad stretch of down which lay 
 between it and the cliff. There was a rustic 
 seat close at hand, shadowed and retired, 
 though not far from the winding path which 
 lay across the coarse and scanty turf. 
 
 ' Will you rest here for a little while, Miss 
 Mallard?' Hawthorne asked, indicating the 
 rustic seat by a motion of the hand. 
 
 ' I'm not in the least tired,' she answered. 
 
 'Will you do me the honour of listenii^g 
 to me for a few minutes ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly, Mr. Hawthorne.' 
 
 The calmness of her reply made him very
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 293 
 
 nervous, and be grew more tlian ever fearful 
 of her response to what he had to say. 
 
 'Shall we sit down here? ' he began. *I 
 spoke to General Mallard yesterday. Has he 
 told you the nature of our conversation ? ' 
 
 'No, he has not mentioned it.' 
 
 ' I asked him not to do so. I left it, of 
 course, to Iiis entire discretion, but I told 
 him I would prefer to speak myself.' 
 
 He was careful to give no sign of the in- 
 ward perturbation which shook him, but he 
 thought that slie must have known what was 
 coming by this time, and her coolness augured 
 the worst for him. Her eyes met his with a 
 simple gravity, no more, no less. 
 
 ' I've allowed myself to talk to you of my 
 past life,' he said, finding that she did not help 
 him out in any way. 'I've done so for a 
 purpose. I should not hke to seem to sail 
 under false colours in a case like this. I've 
 told General Mallard all about myself, and he 
 puts no obstacle in my way. He leaves the 
 matter entirely to your decision.'
 
 294 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 He paused again, and again she gave him 
 no help. She turned away her face from him, 
 and that seemed terrible. He could see the 
 outline of her cheek, and the little pink ear 
 with bright curling hair clustering round it. 
 She bent her head and trailed the point of her 
 sunshade hither and thither in the turf. ' I 
 have been trying to find the courage to tell 
 you this for a long time,' he said clumsily, to 
 his own way of thinking. ' I fell in love with 
 you when I first saw you ; I have gone on 
 loving you ever since, and I can't tell you how 
 much you have changed me.' She gave no 
 sign at all, and he was easily disheartened, as 
 some kinds of lovers are. He was chock full 
 of the humblest opinions about himself just 
 then, disparaging his personal aspect and 
 mental endowments and spiritual qualities all 
 round. As a rule he had no self-consciousness 
 to talk of, but when he sat himself side by side 
 with Clara Mallard he grew a little morbid in 
 the analysis of his own claims to value, and 
 felt absolutely humble. ' Miss Mallard,' he
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 295 
 
 went on after a pause, which seemed terrible 
 to him, 'I know my own presumption. I 
 know my own unworthiness, but I can't help 
 loving you. Do you think you can bring 
 yourself to care for me ? L)o you ? ' 
 
 She kept silent still, and he took her dis- 
 engaged hand, not knowing that he did so, in 
 both his own. He murmured his query again 
 and again, but still she answered nothing. 
 She allowed him to hold the gloved hand, 
 however, and made no effort to release it. 
 Miss Mallard had gone through the preli- 
 minaries of this scene perhaps a score of 
 times, with as many different people. She had 
 always borne herself with the most admirable 
 sang froid^ and no gentleman had hitherto 
 dared to take her hand in this fashion. She 
 had had impetuous and impassioned suitors, 
 too, but she had known how to keep them at 
 a distance. But in this case there was a 
 difference, and in spite of her experience, she 
 felt for a moment as gauche and embarrassed 
 as a school-girl. A step sounded near at hand
 
 296 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 upon the pathway, and Hawthorne had but 
 just time enough to assume an attitude and 
 expression of utter unconcern when the Count 
 von Herder appeared, smoking a cigarette and 
 looking imperturbably happy, as if the recent 
 fact of being kicked out of a gentleman's house 
 most excellently agreed with him. He glanced 
 at the pair througli his golden spectacles, 
 raised his hat with a lofty grace, and strolled 
 by magnificently. Miss Mallard, though she 
 did not know him, offered a slight return to 
 his salute, for she was not entirely sure of the 
 manners of the land, and was always willing 
 to meet civility with kindness. Hawthorne 
 made no response whatever, and the Count 
 went on until he was just on a level with their 
 seat ; then, turning suddenly with an air of a 
 man struck by a recollection, he raised his hat a 
 second time, and standing with bare bent head, 
 rounded shoulders, and each hand at a level 
 with the elbow, opened his mouth and spoke : 
 ' I bek your pardon, Mr. Hawthorne,' he 
 said, ' but I am charged to deliver to you a
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 297 
 
 message of very great importance. May I 
 ask if it will suit your confenience for me to 
 gall upon you at any time to-morrow ? ' 
 Now, had this query been propounded any- 
 where but in tlie presence of Miss Mallard, it 
 is probable that Hawthorne would have dis- 
 dained to answer, but he did not care in her 
 presence even to hint at the existence of a 
 quarrel, though the right was absolutely on 
 his side, and though the Count von Herder 
 was a personage witli whom no man who 
 respected himself would hold unnecessary 
 converse. 
 
 ' I am engaged for the whole of to-morrow, 
 Count von Herder,' he said stiffly. 
 
 'Shall we say then the next tay?' ques- 
 tioned the Count. 
 
 'I am engaged on the next day also,' 
 Hawthorne answered. 
 
 'Goot,' repUed Yon Herder, looking up 
 with a happy smile. ' Then we vill say at ten 
 in the morning on Saturday. Shall I make an 
 appointment to meet you at the club ? '
 
 298 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 * At the club,' Hawthorne answered, seeing 
 that the man was not to be shaken off. 
 
 ' I'll pe there,' returned the Count. And 
 with two profound and deliberate bows he 
 resumed his hat and continued his walk. 
 
 ' Who is that gentleman ? ' asked Miss 
 Mallard. 
 
 ' That is Count von Herder,' Hawthorne 
 responded. ' I met him in Berlin.' 
 
 He liad given the man a rendezvous in the 
 girl's hearing, and he could not abuse him 
 after that. The Count's appearance seemed 
 unpropitious. It was not easy to get back to 
 a subject broached w^th so much difficulty a 
 while ago. Miss Mallard felt this, and when 
 the silence was growing a little embarrassing 
 contrived to precipitate matters. 
 
 'We must rejoin our friends,' she said. 
 This gave Hawthorne the chance he wanted, 
 and he seized upon it with avidity. 
 
 ' Not until you have answered my ques- 
 tion,' he pleaded. ' Don't go until you have 
 told me. You don't know what suspense
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 299 
 
 means to me, you can't know.' Now if Miss 
 Mallard had been asked plainly and in so 
 many words whether she would liave con- 
 sented to marry a man who knew absolutely 
 nothing of his own antecedents except that his 
 father had once been in partnership with a 
 convict, it is very hkely that she would have 
 answered No. But in Michael Hawthorne's 
 case it mattered very little. She had known 
 him by repute these ten years. The young 
 Tasmanian millionaire had been a good deal 
 talked about in society, and the mothers of 
 England had exhausted ingenuity in attempts 
 to marry him. He had belonged to the very 
 best set, and had had access to the best places 
 since he was eighteen years of age, and had 
 known the most distinguished people. It was 
 not as if he had just sprung from nowhere 
 with his two millions behind him. 
 
 The story he had told her was curious and 
 interesting, and a little out of the common, and 
 it had no more than added a touch of romance 
 to her thoughts of him ; for Miss Mallard was
 
 300 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 very strangely prepossessed in this young 
 gentleman's favour, and without being abso- 
 lutely head over ears in love with him as he 
 was with her, she was persuaded that he was 
 one of the highest minded and most unselfish 
 of men. She thought well of his personal 
 appearance, and she knew that his manners 
 were charming. She had not known altogether 
 how deeply interested she had been in Michael 
 Hawthorne until his proposal came upon her. 
 It would be nonsense to say that it took 
 her by surprise, for she had been more or less 
 expecting it for months ; but there is a differ- 
 ence between expecting a thing and having it. 
 And when, spurred by her continued silence, 
 he began to plead his suit with ardour, when 
 he began to talk about her beauty, and her 
 goodness, and her intelligence, and to tell her 
 how delightful all her attributes made her, 
 and how she glorified them, she began to thrill 
 and tremble ever so little. She was quite 
 sure it was nonsense ; she was quite sure it 
 was not true that she was the most beautiful.
 
 TIME'S REVENGES 301 
 
 and the cleverest, and the best girl in the whole 
 wide world ; but in spite of its obvious ab- 
 surdity, it was not unpleasant to listen to, and 
 it was really very delightful to know that 
 Hawthorne believed it all, and so at length 
 she capitulated, and Hawthorne went into the 
 seventh heaven. Then he lauded her to her 
 face so rapturously and shamelessly that she 
 began to blush most beautifully, and to be half 
 afraid of him and his ardour ; and when he 
 held her gloved hand in both of his and kissed 
 it again and again — a most improper and 
 reprehensible thing to do in broad daylight, 
 and in the open air, within earshot of the 
 babble of a hundred voices — she found it time 
 definitely to retreat. 
 
 Even then he pursued her, with arduous 
 eyes and one wdiispered question often re- 
 peated. Did she love him ? Only ever so 
 little — did she — did she .^ Wotild she try — 
 would she — w^ould she .^ It was not easy to 
 go back and face the battery of glances wdiich, 
 both to Hawthorne's fancy and the girl'a,
 
 302 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 awaited them on the lawn, and so they strolled 
 about a little to recover self-possession and 
 the looks of innocence. Miss Mallard put a 
 definite veto on the continuance of the con- 
 versation on the lines on which Hawthorne 
 had started it. 
 
 ' I'll try,' she said at last, in answer to his 
 repeated question. ' But now,' she added, with 
 an exquisite frank shyness, ' we must choose 
 another theme. If you speak one other word on 
 tlie old one I shall leave you at the instant.' 
 
 Hawthorne, who was of course at this 
 time becomingly afraid of her, obeyed her 
 injunction so far as silence went, but was not 
 equally successful in the discovery of a new 
 subject for converse. The young lady came 
 to his aid. 
 
 'Tell me,' Mr. Hawthorne,' she said, 
 ' about this curious old convict you were 
 speaking of. You are quite sure he was 
 innocent ? ' 
 
 ' Everybody who knows him is sure of it.' 
 Hawthorne answered. He told her the story
 
 TIME'S REVEISGES 303 
 
 as lie had received it from Denton and Sir 
 Ferdinand. 
 
 ' He served his time in full ? ' she asked. 
 ' That was something of a tragedy.' 
 
 'Yes, it was, indeed, something of a 
 tragedy. But I beheve the world at large 
 has long since definitely decided to forget all 
 about it. The man, so Denton tells me, is 
 universally respected now. Of course he is 
 extremely wealthy. He's a member of the 
 Legislature, or was three years ago, when 
 Denton heard from him. He had gained for 
 himself the sobriquet of Honest Tom — Honest 
 Tom Barton.' 
 
 She turned upon him with a look of un- 
 disguised amazement. 
 
 ' Honest Tom Barton ! ' she repeated — 
 ' and do you mean to tell me seriously, Mr. 
 Hawthorne, that you are going to inquire for 
 his address .^ ' 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, in some astonishment. 
 ' Why should I not ? ' 
 
 ' There is very little need for it, indeed,'
 
 304 TIME'S REVENGES 
 
 she answered. * You are standing on his 
 grounds. I quite understand now the strange 
 way in which his wife received you. She 
 had evidently expected you to know who she 
 was, and to make at least some allusion to 
 everything you owe her husband.' 
 
 Hawthorne stood dumfoundered. Ingra- 
 titude was for him one of the least possible 
 of vices, and he had certainly seemed to be 
 guilty of it in its most flagrant form. 
 
 ' I must explain this at once. I will see 
 Barton without delay, and will tell him that 
 I came here in ignorance of his identity. 
 The Governor told me this morning that there 
 was a garden party, and asked me to accom- 
 pany him. I came without a guess at my 
 host's name, and when I was presented to Mrs. 
 Barton, it never occurred to me to think 
 that she was the v/ife of the man who saved 
 my life. I must go at once and explain to him.' 
 
 ' Certainly,' she answered ; ' do not lose a 
 moment.' 
 
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