An Outback Marriage, Banjo Paterson [top ten books of all time .TXT] 📗

it here and now. Listen to me, Peggy,” he went on, sinking his voice suddenly and looking hard at her. “I’ve got to know all about this. It’s no use keeping anything back. Were you ever married to William Grant?”

Peggy dropped her voice too.

“Yis. I was married twenty-five years ago at a place called Pike’s pub, out in the Never-never country.”

“Who read the service, parson or priest?”

“Neither. A mish’nary. Mish’nary to the blacks.”

“Is he alive?”

“No, he died out there. He was sick then, wid the Queensland fever.”

“What was his name?”

“Mr. Nettleship.”

“Was the marriage ever registered?”

“Sorra one of me knows. He giv us each a bit of paper⁠—our marriage lines. ’Twas written in pencil. He had no ink in the place, and he had no books wid him. He tore the sheet of paper and give us each half, wid the writing on it; his horses got stole and he had to camp there. He stayed round wid Pike and the blacks till he died.”

“And where is the certificate? Have you lost it?”

“I sint mine down to Mick to keep for me⁠—jist a bit of paper written in pencil it was⁠—and it got lost some ways; but I have a copy of it I med at the time.”

“Where is the copy now?”

“At Mick’s place.”

“You must tell Mick to bring it in. Now where is this place, Pike’s?”

“Out this side of the opal-fields. It’s wild and rough now, but what it was then⁠—well ’twas more like a black’s camp nor a white man’s place at all.”

Blake thought the story had gone far enough. He did not believe a word of it. “Look here, Peggy,” he said, “You have given the place, the date, the name of the parson, and everything. Now you know that if you are telling a lie it will be easily found out. They will soon find out if there was such a missionary, and if he was up there at the time, and if Mr. Grant was up there; and if you are caught out in a lie it may go hard with you. Have you any witnesses?”

“Martin Doyle was there, Black Martin’s son.”

“What! Martin Doyle that’s out at the nine-mile?”

“Yis. He was up driving the buggy and horses for Grant. He can swear to the wedding.”

“He can.”

“Yis.”

Blake sat back in his chair and looked at her. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said, “that you can show me a certificate and a witness to your marriage with William Grant?”

Peggy looked doggedly down at the floor and said, in the tones of one who is repeating the burial service or some other solemn function, “I can prove the marriage.”

Blake was puzzled. He had known the mountain folk all his life, and knew that for uneducated people⁠—or perhaps because they were uneducated people⁠—they were surprisingly clever liars. But he never dreamt that any of them could hoodwink him; so he put Peggy once more through the whole story⁠—made her describe all her actions on the day of the wedding, where she stood, where the witness stood, what the parson said, what her husband said. He went through the whole thing, and could see no flaw in it. He knew that Peggy would not scruple to lie to him; but, with the contempt of a clever man, he felt satisfied that he could soon upset any concocted story. This story seemed to hold water, and the more he cross-examined her the more sure he was that there was something genuine about it; at the same time, he was sure that it was not all genuine. Then a thought occurred to him.

“Would you settle this case if they offered you something?” he said.

“I’ll do whatever you say,” said Peggy, rising. “ ’Tis for you to say what I ought to do. ’Tis not for the like of me, that is no scholar.”

“Leave it to me,” said Blake. “I’ll do what is best for you. Send Martin Doyle in to see me, Martin that was the witness. And about this copy of the certificate, tell Mick to bring it in here. Now you go home, and don’t you say to one living soul one word of what has passed in here. Tell them you are going on with the case, but don’t say any more, or you may land yourself in gaol. Do you hear me?”

And the cowed and flustered Peggy hurried away to join her brother, who was far too wise to ask questions.

“Least said soonest mended,” he said, when told that Blake required silence.

After his clients had gone, Gavan Blake sat for half an hour almost dazed. If Peggy’s story was true, then Mary Grant was an outcast instead of a great heiress. And while he had become genuinely fond of her (which he never was of Ellen Harriott), he had no idea of asking her to share his debts with him. He puzzled over the affair for a long time, and at last his clear brain saw a way out of all difficulties. He would go over to the old station, put the whole case before Mary Grant, and induce her for peace’ sake to give Peggy money to withdraw her claim. Out of this money he himself would keep enough to pay all his pressing debts. He would be that much to the good whatever happened, and afterwards would have an added claim on Mary Grant’s sympathies for having relieved her of a vast lawsuit in which her fortune, and even her very name, were involved.

This plan seemed to him the best for all parties⁠—for himself especially, which was the most important thing. If he could get a large sum to settle the case, he could make Peggy give him a big share for his trouble, and then at last be free from the haunting fear of exposure and ruin. He felt sure that he was doing quite right in advising Mary Grant to pay.

Again and again he ran over Peggy’s case in his mind, and could see no flaw