AN empty wood dray was going up the main street, Windsor, a young man seated on the side rail, carelessly resting after bringing in a second load of firewood from Pitt Town Common.
He was well-proportioned, muscular and hard with work, and black tanned by the sun.
Professor Norris, had he given an honest chart of this man’s character, would have found little for exultant rapture; and, on the other hand, little to condemn. A mind uncultivated, stunted by hard physical labour, he sat in his dray with a stolid, bovine content, for he had dined heartily on his midday meal of damper, corned beef, and a billy of black tea.
So he jolted on his road, as happy for the time being as a hungry cow in a lucerne paddock; but looking up his eye caught sight of a newly-pasted bill on a wall, and he pulled up his horse to read it. Seeing an acquaintance and old school-fellow close by, be hailed him—
“Hullo, Huey! what’s all this about on this bill? Mesmerism and clairvoyance! What sort of fake is that? Is there any circus in it, or horses?”
“No, Alec,” replied Huey; “it’s a man that feels your bumps and tells you, you are an awfully clever fellow, and a girl that reads you your fortune, and all kinds of things besides.”
“Oh, that sort of rot! I thought it might have been something worth seeing.”
“The show’s not up to much, but the girl’s a ripper—the prettiest girl in the world, I do believe! Straight wire, and no joke!”
“Is it worth a bob now, to go and see her?”
Little thinking how much hung on his answer, little knowing to how large a degree that answer would shape his own life and that of others, Huey answered—
“Pay a bob! Why, it’s worth a quid, man, and cheap at the price!”
* * * * *
On his second visit to the Professor, Huey got on speaking terms with Bertha, and that young lady, instinctively seeing, or feeling, the conquest she had made, added more gracious smiles and still more gracious words to ensnare her victim. And yet there was a certain haughtiness and reserve about her that repelled familiarity, and perhaps added to her charm.
“It must be very nice for you,” said Huey at this interview, “to be travelling about the country, seeing all the different towns and people; not confined, a poor creature like myself, to one dull little place.”
“So I thought,” replied Bertha, “when the Professor persuaded me to make this journey with him, but I am heartily tired of it. Out of Sydney you are buried, fairly buried, and what is there to see but the same old bush and the same old stupid people wherever you go. It is all very well for the Professor; he finds wonderful ‘subjects,’ as he calls them, everywhere. I don’t know how many possible Shakespeares and Miltons he has not discovered. To hear him, you would think the bush was just running over with talent. He says it is only accident that brings great men to the front, and that for one that is known, hundreds are lost to themselves and everybody else. Now what is the good, I want to know, of being as clever as clever can be, if you have to waste it all on wallabies and cockatoos?”
And here it seemed to Huey that Bertha’s words had a personal address, that she already felt an interest in him, and, in this indirect way, was summoning him to a new life.
“But what is a fellow to do—one of those clever men you speak of, I mean? How is he to get out of the rut? What is the good of being clever, anyway? Like the Professor, for instance. He is not very rich, I suppose?”
“Oh, poor old Pro! Rich?—no! And never will be. His one desire is to spread what he calls the ‘Light of Modern Research’; but it’s my belief that people don’t want his ‘Light,’ or anybody else’s. Every one thinks himself so clever, you know. And when you try and prove to them they are just ignorant and stupid, they don’t like it.”
“And what do you think of it all, Miss Summerhayes?”
“I am afraid I am one of the stupid, ignorant people! I just want to be like everybody else—no better, no worse. Only let me be where there is somebody—some life. This is my last appearance on the platform. Once in Sydney, there I stop. Dear old Sydney! I had no idea what a delightful place it was till I had spent twelve months amongst gum-trees, post-and-rail fences, and bark huts.”
“And where do you live in Sydney?” Huey asked, but before the answer came the Professor burst into the room.
“I have found it out, my dear. Really it’s the most simple thing in the world as plain as the nose on your face, so to speak and no one has ever seen it before. It’s a scientific discovery of the highest importance, and will rank with the laws of gravity and natural selection. Really the law is self-evident.”
“What law, Pro? What are you excited about?”
“You know, my dear, I have often told you that, valuable as phrenology is as a guide to character, it yet only tells a man’s possibilities, not what a man is. This must be looked for in other directions, and I have always held that physiognomy was the clue. But although we all acknowledge that character is shown by the face, no one has yet pointed out the simple rule by which we are all, even a little child, more or less guided. Now, that rule I have just thought out, and I venture to predict it will revolutionize our social organization.”
“Well, what is the rule? Tell us, Pro, quickly, or you will have found out something else and forgotten all about it.”
“The rule, my dear, is this—That where those changes, that take place in the face of every person to express the varied emotions, are found as a permanent part of the face when in repose, then that person has that emotion in a correspondingly high degree, and it follows that as the character is changeable, so is the face. One is an exact index of the other. Let me illustrate. You yourself, who have large love of admiration, an organ becoming and proper of your sex, have the mouth depressed between the nose and chin. Now, when you smile, as you are now doing, the corners of the mouth are drawn back, as it were, giving to any mouth a slight appearance of what, to you, is a permanent feature. And when a person is resolute or determined, is it not a fact, Mr. Gosper, that the teeth are clenched and the jaw projected? Are not these also the signs of resolution and determination? And so on, all through. I could multiply instances indefinitely, but one has only to stand before a mirror, and like an actor, express the different sentiments, to learn the whole key to physiognomy in a few minutes.”
“But what do you mean to do about it, Pro?” inquired Bertha, smiling incredulously.
“When we get back to Sydney I will write a book. I am inclined to think you are right as to the want of sympathetic appreciation of the public for lectures. Literature is the teacher of to-day. To literature I will turn my energies.”
Huey, who was in no ways interested in the “new law,” here found means to escape, and with a smile of adieu from Bertha that haunted him for many days to come, descended the stairs, and as he descended there seemed to be a light going out of his life.
She would leave the next morning; how much that meant he commenced to realize. The flames of a new hope, brightened in her presence, flickered and dimmed as he left her. With the descending stairs the hope grew smaller and smaller, and once descended, seemed to go right out.
What could he, odd man in a country printing office, hope to offer? Even George Street, that up to this time had appeared a right and proper kind of thoroughfare for a country town, now looked mean and squalid, and Windsor itself a grave for youth and energy. He could not stand it. He felt sure he could not stand it. Better far to starve in a city than vegetate amidst the Hawkesbury flats, animate and inanimate.
And joined with this thought was a passionate resolve to see Bertha Summerhayes again, to strive for her, to fight for her if need be, but to possess her at any cost.
* * * * *
On Pitt Town Common, the following morning, Alexander Booth was having an inward experience, not unlike that of his chum, Huey. He had been twice to the lecture, and though not mesmerized by the Professor, he was affected in a most strange manner by his fair assistant.
He had not spoken to her, he had only seen her as one of a small audience, yet she already filled his thoughts in a way that was engrossing and irresistible, almost painful. It was as though his mind had been a clean slate and she the first to write on it, not in part, but over the whole surface.
So it came about that the logs would not split that day; they might have been tough or fuzzy, or crossed in the grain. He had never found his judgment so mistaken as to how a tree would run. Then he took to cursing the logs, the wedges, and the maul, then by progression to damn the common, the life he was leading, and himself for a fool for following it. He who was used to whistle at his work, like a magpie on a stump, never piped a note, and though the sun glared down through the shadeless forest of box and ironbark on the brown grass and dusty track, it seemed to him a dark cloud was in the sky.
Going into Windsor at last, he flogged the horse in a way unusual to him, and seeing Huey in George Street, hailed him with a sense of relief.
“I’m full up, Huey.”
“Full of what?”
“Full of this dog’s life, of slogging all day for a mere nothing. I’m going to give it best and clear.”
“So am I. I told the boss this morning this would be my last week; I’m off for Sydney. Windsor may be good enough for old men to die in, but for a young man who wants to live Sydney’s the place.”
“Then I’ll go with you, I’m blest if I don’t. I’ll tell the old man to-night. Young George is big enough now to do my work, and if the old man does not like it he can just do the other thing.”
So the bargain was concluded, and the two young men, each turned to discontent by a pretty face, decided to explore the unknown, and plunge in the maelstrom of Sydney life.