Robbery Under Arms, Rolf Boldrewood [pdf e book reader txt] 📗

let him disgrace himself by marrying into a family like ours. He had come over every now and then, and had seen they wanted for nothing when father and Jim were away; but she always felt her heart growing colder towards him and his prosperity while we were so low down in every way. As for Gracey, she (Aileen) believed that she was in love with me in a quiet, steady way of her own, without showing it much, but that she would be true to me, if I asked her, to the end of the world, and she was sure that she could never marry anyone else as long as I lived. She was that sort of girl. So didn’t I think I ought to do everything I could to get a better character, and try and be good enough for such a girl? She knew girls pretty well. She didn’t think there was such another girl in the whole colony, and so on.

And when we went away where were we going to hide? I could not say about particular distances, but I told her generally that we’d keep out of harm’s way, and be careful not to be caught. We might see her and mother now and then, and by bush-telegraphs and other people we could trust should be able to send news about ourselves.

“What’s the Captain going to do?” she said suddenly. “He doesn’t look able to bear up against hardship like the rest of you. What beautiful small hands he has, and his eyes are like sleeping fires.”

“Oh, he’s a good deal stronger than he looks,” I said; “he’s the smartest of the lot of us, except it is dad, and I’ve heard the old man say he must knock under to him. But don’t you bother your head about him; he’s quite able to take care of himself, and the less a girl like you thinks about a man like him the better for her.”

“Oh, nonsense,” she said, at the same time looking down in a half-confused sort of way. “I’m not likely to think about him or anyone else just now; but it seems such a dreadful thing to think a man like him, so clever and daring, and so handsome and gentle in his ways, should be obliged to lead such a life, hunted from place to place like⁠—like⁠—”

“Like a bushranger, Ailie,” I said, “for that’ll be the long and short of it. You may as well know it now, we’re going to ‘turn out.’ ”

“You don’t say that, Dick,” she said. “Oh! surely you will never be so mad. Do you want to kill mother and me right out? If you do, why not take a knife or an axe and do it at once? Her you’ve been killing all along. As for me, I feel so miserable and degraded and despairing at times that but for her I could go and drown myself in the creek when I think of what the family is coming to.”

“What’s the use of going on like that, Aileen?” I said roughly. “If we’re caught now, whatever we do, great or small, we’re safe for years and years in gaol. Mayn’t we as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb? What odds can it make? We’ll only have bolder work than duffing cattle and faking horse-brands like a lot of miserable crawlers that are not game for anything more sporting.”

“I hear, I hear,” says sister, sitting down and putting her head in her hands. “Surely the devil has power for a season to possess himself of the souls of men, and do with them what he will. I know how obstinate you are, Dick. Pray God you may not have poor Jim’s blood to answer for as well as your own before all is done. Goodbye. I can’t say God bless you, knowing what I do; but may He turn your heart from all wicked ways, and keep you from worse and deadlier evil than you have committed! Good night. Why, oh why, didn’t we all die when we were little children!”

She turned away without another word, and went back hanging her head and looking as if she was going to her own death. How queer it seems that fellows like us, though they’d give their own lives any day for those they love like Jim and I did mother and Aileen, if there was any outside show of danger, yet they’ll put these very people to death by slow degrees⁠—day by day⁠—ten times worse pain and misery than killing them outright! They know this, yet they won’t keep straight, or can’t⁠—whichever it is. Men and women are queer things, there’s no mistake; and the more life you know, the less you’re able to understand the rights of it.

XXII

I brought it out sudden-like to Aileen before I could stop myself, but it was all true. How we were to make the first start we couldn’t agree; but we were bound to make another big touch, and this time the police would be after us for something worth while. Anyhow, we could take it easy at the Hollow for a bit, and settle all the ins and outs without hurrying ourselves.

Our dart now was to get to the Hollow that night some time, and not to leave much of a track either. Nobody had found out the place yet, and wasn’t going to if we knew. It was too useful a hiding-place to give away without trouble, and we swore to take all sorts of good care to keep it secret, if it was to be done by the art of man.

We went up Nulla Mountain the same way as we remembered doing when Jim and I rode to meet father that time he had the lot of weaners. We kept wide and didn’t follow on after one another so as to make a marked trail. It was a