"What have I done, anyway?" asked Smith helplessly. "That"s all I want to know."

Steelman wearily rested his brow on his hand.

"That will do, Smith," he said listlessly; "don"t say another word, old man; it"ll only make my head worse; don"t talk. You might, at the very least, have a little consideration for my feelings--even if you haven"t for your own interests." He paused and regarded Smith sadly. "Well, I"ll give you another show. I"ll stage the business for you."

He made Smith doff his coat and get into his worst pair of trousers--and they were bad enough; they were hopelessly "gone" beyond the extreme limit of bush decency. He made Smith put on a rag of a felt hat and a pair of ""lastic-sides" which had fallen off a tramp and lain baking and rotting by turns on a rubbish heap; they had to be tied on Smith with bits of rag and string. He drew dark shadows round Smith"s eyes, and burning spots on his cheek-bones with some greasepaints he used when they travelled as "The Great Steelman and Smith Combination Star Dramatic Co." He damped Smith"s hair to make it dark and lank, and his face more corpse-like by comparison--in short, he made him up to look like a man who had long pa.s.sed the very last stage of consumption, and had been artificially kept alive in the interests of science.

"Now you"re ready," said Steelman to Smith. "You left your whare the day before yesterday and started to walk to the hospital at Palmerston. An old mate picked you up dying on the road, brought you round, and carried you on his back most of the way here. You firmly believe that Providence had something to do with the sending of that old mate along at that time and place above all others. Your mate also was hard up; he was going to a job--the first show for work he"d had in nine months--but he gave it up to see you through; he"d give up his life rather than desert a mate in trouble. You only want a couple of shillings or a bit of tucker to help you on to Palmerston. You know you"ve got to die, and you only want to live long enough to get word to your poor old mother, and die on a bed.

"Remember, they"re Scotch up at that house. You understand the Scotch barrack pretty well by now--if you don"t it ain"t my fault. You were born in Aberdeen, but came out too young to remember much about the town. Your father"s dead. You ran away to sea and came out in the _Bobbie Burns_ to Sydney. Your poor old mother"s in Aberdeen now--Bruce or Wallace Wynd will do. Your mother might be dead now--poor old soul!--any way, you"ll never see her again. You wish you"d never run away from home. You wish you"d been a better son to your poor old mother; you wish you"d written to her and answered her last letter. You only want to live long enough to write home and ask for forgiveness and a blessing before you die. If you had a drop of spirits of some sort to brace you up you might get along the road better. (Put this delicately.) Get the whine out of your voice and breathe with a wheeze--like this; get up the nearest approach to a deathrattle that you can. Move as if you were badly hurt in your wind--like this. (If you don"t do it better"n that, I"ll stoush you.) Make your face a bit longer and keep your lips dry--don"t lick them, you d.a.m.ned fool!-_breathe_ on them; make "em dry as chips. That"s the only decent pair of breeks you"ve got, and the only shoon. You"re a Presbyterian--not a U.P., the Auld Kirk. Your mate would have come up to the house only--well, you"ll have to use the stuffing in your head a bit; you can"t expect me to do all the brain work. Remember it"s consumption you"ve got--galloping consumption; you know all the symptoms--pain on top of your right lung, bad cough, and night sweats. Something tells you that you won"t see the new year--it"s a week off Christmas now. And if you come back without anything, I"ll blessed soon put you out of your misery."

Smith came back with about four pounds of shortbread and as much various tucker as they could conveniently carry; a pretty good suit of cast-off tweeds; a new pair of "lastic-sides from the store stock; two bottles of patent medicine and a black bottle half-full of home-made consumption-cure; also a letter to a hospital-committee man, and three shillings to help him on his way to Palmerston. He also got about half a mile of sympathy, religious consolation, and medical advice which he didn"t remember.

"_Now_," he said, triumphantly, "am I a mug or not?"

Steelman kindly ignored the question. "I _did_ have a better opinion of the Scotch," he said, contemptuously.

Steelman got on at an hotel as billiard-marker and decoy, and in six months he managed that pub. Smith, who"d been away on his own account, turned up in the town one day clean broke, and in a deplorable state. He heard of Steelman"s luck, and thought he was "all right," so went to his old friend.

Cold type--or any other kind of type--couldn"t do justice to Steelman"s disgust. To think that this was the reward of all the time and trouble he"d spent on Smith"s education! However, when he cooled down, he said:

"Smith, you"re a young man yet, and it"s never too late to mend. There is still time for reformation. I can"t help you now; it would only demoralize you altogether. To think, after the way I trained you, you can"t battle round any better"n this! I always thought you were an irreclaimable mug, but I expected better things of you towards the end.

I thought I"d make _something_ of you. It"s enough to dishearten any man and disgust him with the world. Why! you ought to be a rich man now with the chances and training you had! To think--but I won"t talk of that; it has made me ill. I suppose I"ll have to give you something, if it"s only to get rid of the sight of you. Here"s a quid, and I"m a mug for giving it to you. It"ll do you more harm than good; and it ain"t a friendly thing nor the right thing for me--who always had your welfare at heart--to give it to you under the circ.u.mstances. Now, get away out of my sight, and don"t come near me till you"ve reformed. If you do, I"ll have to stoush you out of regard for my own health and feelings."

But Steelman came down in the world again and picked up Smith on the road, and they battled round together for another year or so; and at last they were in Wellington--Steelman "flush" and stopping at an hotel, and Smith stumped, as usual, and staying with a friend. One night they were drinking together at the hotel, at the expense of some mugs whom Steelman was "educating." It was raining hard. When Smith was going home, he said:

"Look here, Steely, old man. Listen to the rain! I"ll get wringing wet going home. You might as well lend me your overcoat to-night. You won"t want it, and I won"t hurt it."

And, Steelman"s heart being warmed by his successes, he lent the overcoat.

Smith went and p.a.w.ned it, got glorious on the proceeds, and took the p.a.w.n-ticket to Steelman next day.

Smith had reformed.

AN UNFINISHED LOVE STORY

Brook let down the heavy, awkward sliprails, and the gaunt cattle stumbled through, with aggravating deliberation, and scattered slowly among the native apple-trees along the sidling. First there came an old easygoing red poley cow, then a dusty white cow; then two s.h.a.ggy, half-grown calves--who seemed already to have lost all interest in existence--and after them a couple of "babies," sleek, glossy, and cheerful; then three more tired-looking cows, with ragged udders and hollow sides; then a lanky barren heifer--red, of course--with half-blind eyes and one crooked horn--she was noted for her great agility in jumping two-rail fences, and she was known to the selector as "Queen Elizabeth;" and behind her came a young cream-coloured milker--a mighty proud and contented young mother--painfully and patiently dragging her first calf, which was hanging obstinately to a teat, with its head beneath her hind legs. Last of all there came the inevitable red steer, who scratched the dust and let a stupid "bwoo-ur-r-rr" out of him as he snuffed at the rails.

Brook had shifted the rails there often before--fifteen years ago--perhaps the selfsame rails, for stringy-bark lasts long; and the action brought the past near to him--nearer than he wished. He did not like to think of that hungry, wretched selection existence; he felt more contempt than pity for the old-fashioned, unhappy boy, who used to let down the rails there, and drive the cattle through.

He had spent those fifteen years in cities, and had come here, prompted more by curiosity than anything else, to have a quiet holiday. His father was dead; his other relations had moved away, leaving a tenant on the old selection.

Brook rested his elbow on the top rail of an adjacent panel and watched the cattle pa.s.s, and thought until Lizzie--the tenant"s niece--shoved the red steer through and stood gravely regarding him (Brook, and not the steer); then he shifted his back to the fence and looked at her.

He had not much to look at: a short, plain, thin girl of nineteen, with rather vacant grey eyes, dark ringlets, and freckles; she had no complexion to speak of; she wore an ill-fitting print frock, and a pair of men"s "lastic-sides several sizes too large for her. She was "studying for a school-teacher;" that was the height of the ambition of local youth. Brook was studying her.

He turned away to put up the rails. The lower rail went into its place all right, but the top one had got jammed, and it stuck as though it was spiked. He worked the rail up and down and to and fro, took it under his arm and tugged it; but he might as well have pulled at one of the posts. Then he lifted the loose end as high as he could, and let it fall--jumping back out of the way at the same time; this loosened it, but when he lifted it again it slid so easily and far into its socket that the other end came out and fell, barking Brook"s knee. He swore a little, then tackled the rail again; he had the same trouble as before with the other end, but succeeded at last. Then he turned away, rubbing his knee.

Lizzie hadn"t smiled, not once; she watched him gravely all the while.

"Did you hurt your knee?" she asked, without emotion.

"No. The rail did."

She reflected solemnly for a while, and then asked him if it felt sore.

He replied rather briefly in the negative.

"They were always nasty, awkward rails to put up," she remarked, after some more reflection.

Brook agreed, and then they turned their faces towards the homestead.

Half-way down the sidling was a clump of saplings, with a big log lying amongst them. Here Brook paused. "We"ll sit down for a while and have a rest," said he. "Sit down, Lizzie."

She obeyed with the greatest of gravity. Nothing was said for awhile.

She sat with her hands folded in her lap, gazing thoughtfully at the ridge, which was growing dim. It looked better when it was dim, and so did the rest of the scenery. There was no beauty lost when darkness hid the scenery altogether. Brook wondered what the girl was thinking about.

The silence between them did not seem awkward, somehow; but it didn"t suit him just then, and so presently he broke it.

"Well, I must go to-morrow."

"Must you?"

"Yes."

She thought awhile, and then she asked him if he was glad to go.

"Well, I don"t know. Are you sorry, Lizzie?"

She thought a good long while, and then she said she was.

He moved closer to the girl, and suddenly slipped his arm round her waist. She did not seem agitated; she still gazed dreamily at the line of ridges, but her head inclined slightly towards him.

"Lizzie, did you ever love anyone?"--then antic.i.p.ating the usual reply--"except, of course, your father and mother, and all that sort of thing." Then, abruptly: "I mean did you ever have a sweetheart?"

She reflected, so as to be sure; then she said she hadn"t. Long pause, and he, the city man, breathed hard--not the girl. Suddenly he moved nervously, and said:

"Lizzie--Lizzie! Do you know what love means?"

She pondered over this for some minutes, as a result of which she said she thought that she did.

"Lizzie! Do you think you can love me?"

She didn"t seem able to find an answer to that. So he caught her to him in both arms, and kissed her hard and long on the mouth. She was agitated now--he had some complexion now; she struggled to her feet, trembling.