Novelist.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1187, 28 October 1882, Page 7 (Supplement)

Novelist.

BY SLOW DEGREES. A STORY OF AUSTRALIA.

BY

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY.

AUTHOR OF “ THAT FELLOW FARNESE.” CHAPTER XLlL—(Continued.) “Bat, sorely amongst educated men/’ I said to Shuter, when the talk had once more become general, “ such restrictions as the second and third must prove very irksome by tending to cramp and cripple conversation.” Shuter laughed. “ That’s just it!” he said. “ Funds chiefly from fines. Fellows always being fined. Next to impossible to keep such rules. See all four regulations broken before the night’s over. First rule’s a standing one, you know; the others are changed every meeting. Sometimes prohibited from quoting poetry; sometimes forbidden to mention particular science or art, or city, or country, and so on. Understand ?” “ Yes,” I answered, laughing at the whimsicality of the arrangement. “ Have you ever had the mention of Melbourne itself prohibited ?” “Yes; several times. Great fun it was; fellows getting fined every minute. Hallo, somebody’s broken a rule now !” A terrific knocking upon the table was succeeded by a dead Spence, in the midst of which Kangaroo Eleven rose and charged Kangaroo Fifty-two with having broken the second rule by using the phrase “ a priori.” Kangaroo Fifty-two, an excitable little man in a pea-jacket, denied that he had broken the rule. “ A priori” he maintained, was practically one word, and could not, therefore, be considered as coming under the rule, which provided only against the use of classical phrases. They might as well fine him, he contended, for using the word “ ultimatum.”

This nice point the parties were proceeding to argue with great vigour and erudition, when the Grand Kangaroo put a summary end to the discussion by thundering tremendously upon the table, and declaring that, by the authority in him vested, he declared “ft priori" to be a phrase, within the meaning ♦f the rule, and that Kangaroo Fifty-two was fined accordingly. But the small man, who had evidently been imbibing more than was good for him, jumped to his feet. “ I protest!” he cried, “ and if Dr. Jocelyn thinks” A universal roar of “ Breach, breach I” proclaimed that the speaker had, in his excitement, committed an offence of the first magnitude by naming the Grand Kangaroo, and another and heavier fine was immediately recorded against him. Kangaroo Fifty-two having thereupon laughed a wild and scornful laugh, and audibly expressed his contempt—both personally and officially—for the Grand Kangaroo, another member rose and called attention to the fact that Fifty-two was not quite sober, and had referred to the G.K. as a “ dunderheaded old noodle.” This statement was confirmed by another Kangaroo, who begged to move, therefore, that Kangaroo Fifty-two be declared a Kangaroo Rat and relegated to the third table. The motion having been put to to the vote, was carried by a large majority, and the recalcitrant Fifty-two was conveyed by the Old-Man Kangaroo to the meanlyfurnished board at the end of the room, where he filled a tin mug with beer, upset it immediately afterwards upon the table, and fell asleep with his head in the puddle. The fun now grew fast and furious, and the fines became more frequent, until at last the Grand Kangaroo himself was convicted of a treble breach of the temporary rules. Two more members having been declared Kangaroo Rats, had been removed to the third table, but, nothing daunted by their banishment, were hob-nobbing and toasting each other in tipsy good-fellowship, and, as their tin vessels clinked together, the Grand Kangaroo, who had himself arrived at a very mellow condition, began to chaunt in a rich, oily baritone: “ And let me the pannikin clink, clink ; And let me the pannikin clink : A soldier’s a man, A life’s but a span, Why then let —” “ Peccaei /’’he broke off, recollecting himself and forgetting himself at one and the same time, “ Well, I know its a breach,” he added, as the Latin expression called forth renewed cries of “Breach!” “I quite forgot the rule about singing.” “The Grand Kangaroo has broken two rules,” said a member, rising. “He has just used a Latin word, which, by his own ruling of an hour ago, must be taken as a phrase.” “ The Grand Kangaroo has broken three rules,” said another. “ His song was a quotation from Shakspere.” “ Shakspere!” echoed the Grand Kangaroo. “ Nonsense ! —where can you find anything about a pannikin in Shakspere ?” “ I am positive I have met with the words somewhere in his works,” was the reply. “ Mr. Shuter will probably be able to ” Here the speaker was himself interrupted by the cry of “ Breach!” and, having been duly fined for naming Shuter, he corrected himself and went on to say that Kangaroo Thirty-seven would probably be able to mention in what play the words occurred. “ Second aot of Othello,” said Shuter. “ Cassio’s song in the drunken scene. Word he uses is * canakin,’ though—not ‘ pannikin.” Upon this slight discrepancy, however, the Grand Kangaroo scorned to take his stand, and, all three fines having been recorded against him, he comforted himself with a goodly jorum of punch, looked at his watch, and announced that it was eleven o’clock, and time for the “ Grand Test.” One of the Old-Man Kangaroos immediately rose from his seat, and, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, proceeded with preternatural solemnity to draw a line along the unoccupied part of the floor. The mark, I presumed was intended for a straight one, but the air of exceeding sobriety with which the official commenced operations proved to be but a hollow mockery, for, before he had completed many feet of the erratic zig-zag, which he fondly imagined to be a right line, he let fall the chalk, toppled suddenly over upon his nose, and then raising himself slowly into a sitting posture, uttered a feeble giggle, and observed that the heat of the room had been too much or him.

“ Altogesher too mush I” he repeated several times, and then, finding something very affecting in that consideration, fell incontinently a-weeping. Seized upon by two of his brethren, he was brought before the Grand Kangaroo, and, without the formality of a vote, relegated to the third table, his silver kangaroo having been first transferred to another member, who succeeded in drawing the line correctly, and then announced that the Grand Test was ready. The Grand Kangaroo’s chair was now wheeled round so as to face the line, and all the members in succession having been made to “ walk the chalk,” a dozen or so were selected to undergo the ordeal a second time. This batch having also been divided into two portions, the Old-Man-Kangaroo advanced to the Grand Kangaroo, and announced that there were six Wallabies and four Kangaroo-Rats.

“ Wallabies,” explained Shutter, “ are the slightly tipsy fellows, sent, you see, to the second table. The other fellows are downright drunk.” “Dont you think, then,” asked Walter, “ That the Grand Kangaroo himself is in the Wallaby stage, at least?” “ More than that I” said Shuter. “ Exempt, though— ex-officio." “ Haven’t you broken a rule by saying exofficio ?" I asked. “So I have ! No one heard me but you, though. See how difficult it is to avoid being fined, eh ? There he goes ! —collapsed at last,” added Shuter, referring to the Grand Kangaroo, who, having seen the Wallabies and Kangaroo-Rats duly bestowed at their respective tables, had fallen asleep in the very act of lighting a cigar. Peacefully slumbering, with the weed in one hand and his head resting on the other, the Grand Kangaroo’s open mouth presented too strong a temptation to a facetious gentleman, who sat on his right, and, who, filling a large spoon with a delectable compound of porter, sherry, and cigar-ash, inserted it between the great man’s lips. There was a gasp—a snort—and, drawing back his arm with too much suddeness, the practical joker brought his elbow into violent contact with the nose of his next neighbour, who, with stooped head and bated breath, was awaiting the result of the experiment. In an instant all was confusion. Starting fiercely up, the Grand Kangaroo seized his baton, and began to belabour the person next to him, who. as the real culprit had darted out of the way, chanced to be the man who had already received the bump on the nose. Bleeding profusely from that organ, the injured Kangaroo became outrageous at this fresh assault, and, seizing a champagne bottle from the table, would undoubtedly have broken the Grand Kangaroo’s august head, had not Shuter dexterously seized the uplifted arm in the nick of time. The Old-Man-Kan-garoo now interposed; explanations ensued; and peace was in a fair way of being restored, when an over-officious member thought proper to point out to the Grand Kangaroo the person who had been the original cause of the uproar. This so enraged the compounder of the mixture, that he declared he would make the informer swallow the mess himself, and had left his seat for that purpose, when a large orange, flung from amongst the worshipful company of Kangaroo-Rats, struck him plump in the eye. Already • unsteady on his legs, the blow staggered him, and, grasping at the tablecloth in a wild, but futile, attempt to recover his balance, over he went, dragging the cloth with him, and strewing the floor with bottles, glasses, jugs, basins, and decanters, commingled in one wild mass of destruction. A moment’s silence succeeded the astounding crash of the falling glass and china, and then arose a madder tumult than ever. The degraded exiles at the inferior tables united their forces, and charged up the room upon the Kangaroos, who, nothing loth, addressed themselves as eagerly to the fight, and, amidst the shouts of the combatants, the sound of the blows, and the rattle of falling chairs, we made our way from the room; the last object we beheld being the Grand Kangaroo, with a bump over his eye, and his coat torn half off his back, laying about him like a Trojan with his official truncheon. “ High time to clear out!” said Shuter, as we descended to the street. “ Greatest shindy we’ve had yet. Club’s getting too rowdy. Fun’s all very well, but this is carrying matters too far!”

“ What is it called the Kangaroo Club for ?” I asked, “ I cannot see any appropriateness in the name.”

“ Distinctive Australian animal, that’s all! Wallabies and kangaroo rats may be considered inferior varieties of the same species, you know. Told you to expect nonsense, you remember. This is my way. Must bid you good-night—or rather good-morning.” “ You had better stop with me for the remainder of the night,” said Walter, when Shuter had marched off. “Then you can come and see me start upon my journey.” CHAPTER XLIII. When I arrived at Cintra on the following afternoon, I found the Count preparing to escort Ruth Stone into town. Harrison, it appeared, had waylaid her that morning, not far from the house, and, becoming extremely violent at her refusal to listen to him, had been only prevented from striking her by a gentleman who happened to come up at the time. A gentleman whom, from the description given of him, I conjectured to be the ponderous Mr. Fysshe. “A solemn-faced young man of about twenty-eight,” said the Count, “ with a formal manner, and a painfully elaborate style of expressing himself. ‘Appearances’ he said to me, ‘ pointed, when I made a fortuitous appearance on the scene, to the conclusion that the unmanly miscreant was about to proceed to manual violence.’ 1 found it difficult to keep my countenance as I listened to him.” “ That was Fysshe, beyond all doubt,” I said; “ and his ‘ fortuitous appearance,’ as he called it, was certainly lucky for Ruth. Of course she will let her father know of this.” “ Yes. It is for that purpose she is now going to town. Perhaps you will take charge of her; you know that ‘ squire of dames ’is not my metier." To this I readily consented, and, as we journeyed towards Melbourne, Ruth gave me the particulars of the occurrence. “ Thou knowest,”’ she said, “ that Paola and myself have been in the habit of walking out together every forenoon, but, as Paola was not very well this morning, I went forth alone. Reuben Harrison must have been watching, for scarcely had I got out of sight of the house, when he jumped over a fence and stood before me. What he said I need not repeat to thee; it was both wicked and unjust, seeing I have never encouraged him in any way; but, when I insisted on leaving him, he seized me by the arm and threatened to strike me, as I verily believe he would have done, but that the young man of the strange speech came up and prevented him.

Friend. But not quite; with an effort Silas smoothed his brow, controlled his indignation, and said, as he rang a handbell: “ Verily the old Adam is strong in me still. I will not act in anger; but the young man hath grievously offended. He must go! Send Reuben Harrison hither,” he said to the clerk who answered the bell. “Nay, friend, do not go!” he added to me, as I rose to withdraw. “ I have nothing to say that all the world might not hear. Reuben,” he went on, in calm, quiet tones, when Harrison, sulky and defiant, had made his appearance, “ thou hast exhausted my patience at last. Get thee gone from my doors forthwith I”

“ Where to ?” “ Whither thou wilt. I will not send thee away penniless, but go thou shalt, this very day !” “What’s all this about? What have I done ?” asked Harrison, beginning to bluster. “ I need not recount unto thee what thou knowest already,” said Stone. “ Thou hast done that which must part thee and me I” “Oh, I see!” returned the fellow, scowling ! furiously at me, “ that chap has been stuffin’ you with a lot of lies ; but let him” “ What 1 have heard I have heard from my daughter,” said the Quaker, interrupting him him with a wave of his hand. “ Even if thou has the hardihood to accuse her of falsehood, it will avail thee nothing; go thou shalt—l have said it!” Harrison turned white with rage. “ I’ll make you all sweat for this, he said, “ all three of you ! And there’s plenty of women in the world besides your hypocritical little cat of a”

“Take heed what thou sayest I” interrupted Stone, striding suddenly up to him. “ Mention not my daughter’s name but with due respect, lest thou provoke me to shame myself by smiting thee to the floor!” “ Remember the religion of peace, father,” said Ruth, laying her hand on the arm of Silas, as Harrison, terrified at a mood in which he had never before beheld the Quaker, slunk back, like the cur he was. “ I do remember it, Ruth,” said her father, controlling himself with an effort. “It is that alone which hath saved him from broken bones. Come to me in an hour,” he added to Harrison, “ when I have brought myself once more into feelings of charity towards thee, as towards all men, and I will provide thee with sufficient moneys to secure thee, for a reasonable time, against want. And remember that if thou dost any further molest my daughter, I will hand thee over unto the law. I think not that he will trouble thee more, Ruth,” he went on, when Harrison had left the room, “ but thou hadst better not walk forth unaccompanied for some little time. My daughter saith, friend Raymond, that thou art acquainted with the person who interfered in her behalf.”

“ Mr Fysshe ; yes, I know him slightly.” “ Convey to him, I pray thee, my hearty thanks, when next thou speakest with him, and say that if I can serve him in any lawful and reasonable manner, he will not find Silas Stone ungrateful.” This I promised to do, and, happening to be in Melbourne again the same evening, I called at the office of the Century, in order to ascertain from Shuter where Fysshe was to be found. “Lives in Fitzroy,” said Shuter, whom I found hard at work, in his stuffy little sanctum.' “ Nicholson-street, I think ; but you wouldn’t find him there now. Try at the office of his paper—the Telephone." “ I wish to see him on a matter that is not without interest for you,” I said, and went on te give Shuter an account of the episode between Ruth and Harrison. “By Jove!” he exclaimed when I had finished. “ Poor little thing! Infernal scoundrel! Capital fellow!”—which apparently contradictory expressions, I had no difficulty in referring to the three persons concerned respectively. “ Owe old Fysshe one for that. Wish Ruth’s father would let me take charge of her for good. Haven’t seen her for an age!” “ Why don’t you call at Cintra, then,” I asked.” Count Giustiniani would be glad to see you. He says he met you once.” “Yes; at a meeting of the Royal Society. Liked him much. Glad to cultivate the acquaintance. Can’t come to his house, though, while Ruth Stone is there.” “Don’t think me inquisitive if I ask you the reason.” “Just this; Stone doesn’t want me to continue my acquaintance with his daughter. Got some strange prejudice against the inkslinging fraternity. Used to go to his house, you know. Discountenanced my visits though, when he found I was taking a fancy to Ruth. Know he expects me to keep away from her. Under no promise—but consider myself bound all the same.” “ Your scruples do you honour,” I said, “but I think I see an easy way out of the difficulty; that is, if Stone has no objection to you personally.” “ Not the least. Rather likes me, I think. What’s your plan ?” “ Simply this; get rid of his objection to you as a journalist—by being a journalist no longer!” “Give up journalism!” said Shuter, running both hands through his unruly brown hair, and staring at me with all his eyes. “Bread and butter, my dear fellow!—don’t forget the bread and butter!” “I don’t forget it. Accept Mucklebody’s proposal, and you’ll have better bread and butter than you’re ever likely to get out of a newspaper.” Shuter meditatively pulled his moustache. “ Poor old Muckle,” he said. “ Swears he 11 make me his heir, whether I will or not.” “ Very few men would hesitate to take such a pleasant way to their wishes,” I answered. “ You will not be wronging anybody, either, for I have heard Mucklebody say, that, as far as he knows, he has not a relative in the world. So think it well over,” I added, as I rose to go, “ As far as my opinion goes, it is obviously the right thing to do.” Arrived at the Telephone office, I was shown into a large, untidy-looking apartment, furnished with chipped and ink-stained desks, high wooden stools, and dusty files of newspapers. Broken pens, and loose sheets of paper, were scattered about in all directions, and doggrel verses were scribbled on the wall, which was further decorated, above the fireplace, with a great variety of rough caricature sketches. This was the reporter’s room, and Mr. Fysshe, seated on one of the aforesaid high stools, happened at the time to be its only occupant. Made acquainted with my errand, he expressed, with his usual magniloquence, his pleasure at having rendered such timely assistance, and I was about to take my leave of him, when my eye was caught by a portrait of Fysshe himself, figuring prominently amongst the works of art before-mentioned. Drawn in pen-and-ink, it was, though a gross caricature, a striking likeness, and was labelled underneath—“An odd Fysshe.” *• Ah !” exclaimed the original of the picture—“ you are looking at Mr. Bolton’s delineatory efforts. Mr. Bolton is a member of our staff, and combines, as you may observe, a facetious disposition, with a not inconsiderable artistic faculty. This one, however, presents a less exaggerated version of my personal appearance,” he went ®n, pointing to a smaller portrait which bore the legend “ Dionysius Warwick Fysshe, Esquire.” The second word struck a chord in my memory. “ Warwick is part of your name, then,” I said. “ Yes; my name is correctly recorded in that somewhat ostentatious inscription;

which, I feel bound to observe, was appended by the artist himself. Warwick was my mother’s patronymic.” “ May I ask—as it is not a common name —if you have ever had a relative in the Guards ?” “My mother’s elder brother, I have heard, was at one time in the Grenadier Guards, but, as his proclivities were unfortunately of a disreputable character, his career terminated in self-expatriation, and his subsequent history is enveloped in impenetrable obscurity.” “ I have stumbled on another link with the past, then,” I said to myself, as I heard Fysshe thus describe, in his ludicrously stilted phraseology, the circumstances which identified his mother’s brother with the Lieutenant Warwick who had been ruined by my wife’s father. “ Am I justified in inferring from your inquiry,” said Fysshe, after a pause, “ that you are cognisant of any particulars in connection with my long-lost relative’s subsequent career?” “By no means !” I answered. But, as it happens, I have heard my father speak, in days long past, of this very Lieutenant Warwick—your uncle.” “ Indeed! Well, if he is not defunct, he must by this time have arrived at a somewhat advanced stage of existence. He had disappeared some ten years before my mother irrevocably severed her connection with her only remaining brother, by contracting a matrimonial alliance with my father, who was a professor of the art of elocution.” “And whose elocutionary tastes have taken a very absurd direction, in the person of his son !” I said to myself, as I took my leave. “ I was never so be-worded in my life ; the man is a walking paragraph I” CHAPTER XLIV. “ I see you have had a letter from Yaramboona,” said the Count to me, one morning, about a week after Walter’s departure. “Yes,” I replied, “ and, though I don’t suppose he has much to tell us, I deferred opening it until your daughter should have left the room. No,” I went on, running my eye over the short letter—“ he has no news to , give us on the subject of his errand. Addison is very ill—with delirium tremens, I suspect—though Walter does not directly say so.” “It is not unlikely ; he is a hard drinker, is he not ?”

“ Desperately hard; nothing but a wonderful constitution could have resisted so long the effects of the quantity of spirits he habitually uses. His drinking powers appear to be of the ancient Scandinavian order. And, by-the-way, Count, I never could understand how those old Vikings were able to preserve such a magnificent physique under such tremendous excesses.”

“ The explanation is simple enough,” returned the Count. “ The excesses you speak of, combined with other influences incidental to the period, killed off the men of inferior stamina, leaving only those of great original constitutional power to make their mark upon the world’s history. It was the same all through the stormy middle.ages,’.’ he went on. “ People often wonder—what, with the belligerent spirit of the times, the universal use of deadly weapons, and the rudimentary state of the arts of medicine, and surgery — how weakly or puny men were able to exist in those days. But, the fact is, that they didn't exist at all I —at least, as far as the history of their age is concerned. They died, or were killed off—leaving their stronger brethren to astonish us moderns with the story of their determination and endurance. But, to return to Walter’s affair; I expect soon to hear from Ormonde, and he, if willing, can tell us all that Addison could.”

“ Yes, if he’s willing, as you say; but of that I have my doubts,” I answered, taking up a morning newspaper, only to put it down again with an exclamation of surprise. “ What is the matter ?” asked the Count. “ I saw nothing particular in the paper.” (To be continued)

“ This person would also have handed Reuben over to the police had I not made intercession for him, remembering the great care my father hath had for his welfare.” “ Your father is a good man, Ruth,” I said, “ but he is acting a foolish part by this ungrateful scoundrel. Let us hope this affair will open his eyes and rouse him to action ?” And it did rouse Silas Stone. At the mention of the insult to his daughter, his fist clendied, his gray eyes sparkled, and it was plain that the Man had almost overcome the