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A Voice in the Wilderness · Stingaree

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  Chapter one of Stingery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are
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  in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox
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  dot org. Read by Beeswax Candle Stingaree by E. W. Horning.
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  A Voice in the Wilderness, Part one. La parlate d'a mour o cari
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  fiore riccat emie sospiri narate eimee matiri ditele o cari fior. Miss Bouvarie ceased
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  on the high note as abruptly as string that snaps beneath the bow, and
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  revolved with the music stool to catch but her echoes in the empty room none
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  had entered behind her back. There was neither sound nor shadow in the deep
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  veranda through the open door for the startled girl at the open piano. Missus
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  Clarkson's sanctum was precisely as Missus Clarkson the letter an hour before her own photograph
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  in as many modes beamed from the usual number of ornamental frames, there was
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  nothing whatever to confirm a wild suspicion of the living lady's untimely return. Yet
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  either guilty conscience or an ear as sensitive as it was true, had heard
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  an unmistakable step outside. Hudo. Booverery loved to look magnificent when she sang,
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  her fine frame drawn up to its last inch, her throat a pillar
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  of pale coral, her mouth the perfect round, her teeth a noble relic
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  of barbarism. But sweeter she never was than in these days, or at
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  this moment of them, as she sat with lips just parted in teeth just
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  showing in a simple summer frock of her own unaided, making her eyes as
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  the one deep Tasmanian blue, were still open, very wide, but no
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  longer with the same apprehension. For a step There was but a step that
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  jingled, Nor did they recognize the silhouette and top boots, which at length
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  stood bowing on the threshold. Please finish it, prayed a voice that Miss
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  Boervory liked in her turn, But it was too much at ease for one
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  entirely strange to her, and she rose as little embarrassment and no hesitation at
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  all. Indeed, no I thought I had the station to myself, so
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  you had I have not seen a soul. Missus bervery instantly perceived that honors
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  were due from her I am so sorry you've come to see mister and missus
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  Clarkson, She cried. Missus Clarkson has just left the Melbourne with her maid,
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  and mister Clarkson has gone mustering with all his men. But the Indian
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  cook is about somewhere. I'll find him and he shall make some tea.
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  The visitor planted himself with much gallantry. In the doorway was a man,
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  still young, with a single eye glass and a marshal mustache, which combined
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  to give distinction to a somewhat swarthy country at the moment. He had also
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  an engaging smile. I didn't come to see either mister or Missus Clarkson,
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  said he. In fact, I never heard their name before I was passing
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  the station, and I simply came to see who it was who could sing
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  like that. To believe my own ears, Miss Bouvarie was thrilled. The
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  stranger spoke with an authority that she divined the sincerity which she instinctively took on
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  trust. Her breath came quickly. She was a little nervous. Now if
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  you won't sing to my face, he went on, I must go back
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  to where I hung up my horse and pray that you would at least send
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  me on my way, rejoicing. You will do that. In any case,
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  I didn't know there was such a voice in these parts. You sing
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  a good deal. Of course, I haven't sung for months. He was
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  now in the room. It was no longer any necessity to bar the doorway,
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  and the light coming through fell full on his amazement. The girl stood
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  before him with a calm face, more wistful but ironic, yet with hints
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  of humor in the dark blue eyes. Her companion put up the eye glass,
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  which he had dropped at her reply, May I ask what you were
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  doing in these wilds? Certainly I am missus Clarkson's companion, and you sing
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  for the first time in months. The minute her back is turned, as
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  the lady knows soul from music, you had better ask the lady, and
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  her visible humor reached the corners of Miss Bovarie's mouth. She sings herself,
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  perhaps, and I am here to play her accompliments. The eye glass focused
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  the great smiling girl. Can she sing? She has a voice, but
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  you have never let her hear yours. Once I had not been here long
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  enough to know better, and I made my usual mistake. What is that?
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  I thought I had the station to myself. The questioner bowed to his
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  rebuke. Well, he persisted, none the less. I was told exactly
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  what my voice was like and fit for. The gentleman turned on his heel,
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  as though her appreciation of the humor of her position was an annoyance to
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  him. His movement brought him face to face with the photographic galaxy of ladies
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  in varying styles of evening dress, with an equal variety in coiffures, but
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  a certain family likeness running through the series. Are any of these, Missus
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  Clarkson? All of them? He muttered, something in his mustache. And
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  what's this? He asked of a sudden the young man, for as such
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  Miss Beouvory was beginning to regard him, was standing under the flaming bill of
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  a grand concert to be given in the township of Yellow Rook for the benefit
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  of local charities. Oh that's missus Clarkson's concert, he was informed. She's
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  been getting it up and that's why she had to go to Melbourne about her
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  dress, you know, he smiled sardonically through mustache and monocle. Her charity
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  begins near home. It need not necessarily end there. Yet she sings five
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  times herself, true without the encores, and you don't sing at all.
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  But I accompany a bitter irony. But I say, what's this under the
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  distinguished patronage of Sir Julian Crumb, mus Doc D c Earl, who may
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  he be director of the Royal College of Music in the Old Country. The
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  girl answered with a sigh. A college of music. That's something new since
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  my time, said the visitor, sighing. Also what's a man like that
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  doing out here? He is a brother, a squatter the next station,
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  but one Sir Julian's spending the English winter with him on account of his health.
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  So you've seen something of him I wish we had, But miss Clarkson
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  has no not yet I see, and an enlightened gleam shot through the eyeglass.
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  So this is her way of getting to know a poor, overworked wreck
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  who came out to patch's lungs and peace and quiet. She's going to sing
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  on one of his own songs. She's gone to Melbourne to dress the part,
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  and you're not going to sing anything at all. Missus bervery refrained her
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  like from comment and confirmation, but her silence was the less creditable, and
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  that her companion was now communing chiefly with himself. She felt, indeed,
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  that she had already been guilty of a certain disloyalty to one to whom she
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  owed some manner of allegiance. But that was the extent of Miss Berbery's discretion.
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  In her own eyes, it caused her no qualms to entertain an anonymous
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  gentleman whom she had never seen before. A colder course had commended herself to
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  the young lady Freshmoe from London, to a colonial girl on a station where
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  special provision was made for the entertaining of strange travelers. Situation was simply conventional.
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  Might have been less onerous with host or hostess on the spot, but
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  then the visitor would not have heard her sing, and he seemed to know
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  what singing was. Miss Bouvery watched him as he leant over the piano,
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  looking through the songs which he had dared once more to bring forth from her
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  room. She might well have taken a romantic interest in the dark and dapper
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  man with the military eye glass and mustache, the spruce duck jacket, and
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  the spurred top boots, twas her first meeting was such a type in the
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  back blocks of New South Wales. The gallant ease, the natural gaiety,
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  the charming manners that charmed no less for a clear trace of mannerism, were
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  a peculiar refreshment after society, racier of Riverina soil. Yet it was none
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  of these things which attracted this woman to this man. For the susceptible girl
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  was dead in her for the time being, but the desperate artist was alive
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  again after many weeks, was panting for fresh life, was catching at a
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  straw. He had heard her sing. It had brought him galloping off the
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  track. He praised her voice, and he knew, he knew what singing
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  was. Who could he be not? Could that be possible? Send me
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  this, he said suddenly, and, seating himself at the piano, played
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  the opening bars of a vocal adaptation of Handel's Lago with a just, though
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  unpracticed touch. Nothing could have afforded a finer hearing of the quality and the
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  compass of her voice, And she knew of old how well it suited her.
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  Yet at the outset from the sheer excitement of her suspicion, Hilda Bouverie
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  was shaky to the point of a pronounced tremolo. It wore off with the
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  lengthening cadences, and then the minute the little building was bursting with her voice,
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  while the pianist swayed and bent upon a stool with the exuberant sympathy of
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  a brother and art. And when the last rich note had died away,
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  he wheeled about, and so sat silent for many moments, looking curiously on
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  her flushed face and panting, bosom, I can't place your voice, he
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  said at last. It's both voices, the most wonderful compass in the world.
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  The world will tell you. So when you go back to it,
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  as go back you must, and shell may ask the name of your master,
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  my own name, Bovary, twas my father. He is dead.
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  Her eyes glistened. It did not go to another. I had no money.
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  Besides, he had lived for what you say. When he died with
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  his dream still a dream, I said I would do the same, and
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  I came up here. She had turned away. A less tactful interlocutor had
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  sought plainer repudiation of the rashed resolve. This one rose and buried himself in
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  more songs. I have heard you in grand opera, and at something really
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  grand, he said, Now I want a song, the simpler the better.
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  Behind his back, a daring light came in to the moist eyes.
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  It was one of Missus Clarkson's. She said, she would never forgive me
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  for seeing it. But I have heard it from her so often, I
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  know so well how it ought to go. And fetching the song from a
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  cabinet, she thrust it boldly under his nose. It was called The Unrealized
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  Ideal, and was a setting of some words by a real poet then living,
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  whose name caused this reader to murmur London lyrics. The composer were Sir
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  Julian Crumb, but his name was read without a word or a movement of
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  the strong shoulders and the tanned neck on which Missus Booverery's eyes were fixed.
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  You had better play this yourself, said he, after peering at the music
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  through his glass. Tis rather too many for me, and strangely, crestfallen,
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  Missus Boovery took his place. My only love is always near, in
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  country or in town. I see her twinkling feet, I hear the whisper
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  of her gown. She foots it ever fair and young, her locks are
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  tied in haste, and wonders o'er her shoulder flung and hangs below her waist.
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  For that was the immortal trifle. How much of its immortality it will
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  owe to the setting of Sir Julian Crumb is a matter of opinion, But
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  here is an anonymous view. I like the words miss bovery, but the
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  setting doesn't take me. It might with repetition, seems lacking in go and
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  simplicity. Technically I should say a jem, but there can be no two
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  opinions of your singing. Such a song. That's the sort of arrow to
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  go straight to the heart of the public, a world wide public. And
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  if I am the first to say it to you, I hope you will
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  one day remember it in my favor. Meanwhile, tis for me to thank
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  you from my heart and to say good bye. He was holding out a
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  sun burnt hand. Must you go, she asked, withholding her own and
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  frank disappointment. Unfortunately, Yes, my man is waiting for me with both
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  horses and the scrub. But before I go, I want to ask a
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  great favor of you. It is not to tell a soul I have been
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  here for a singer and a woman of temperament, Hilda Booverie had a wonderfully
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  level head. She inquired, as reason and no promising tone. You will
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  see it missus Clarkson's concert. He would have started. You were coming to
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  that without fail to hear Missus Clarkson sing five songs, your song among them.
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  But it's hers. It has been the other way about. The gay
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  smile broadened on the swarthy face. A very bright eye twinkled through the monocle
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  into those of Miss Boovery. Well, will you promise to say nothing about
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  me? I have a reason which you will be the first to appreciate in
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  due season. Hilda hesitated, reasoned with herself, and finally gave her word.
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  The hands were joined an instant as he thanked her with gallant smile and
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  bow. Then he was gone, and as a spurs ceased jingling on the
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  verandah outside. Hilda Boovery glanced again at the song of the piano and clapped
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  her hands with unreasonable pride. I do believe that I was right, after
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  all, said she Part two. Mister Clarkson and his young men sat at
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  meat that evening with a Miss Boovery hard to recognize as the apparently austere spinster
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  who had hitherto been something of a skeleton at their board, coldly handsome at
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  her worst, A single day had brought her forth a radiant beauty, wreathed
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  in human smiles. Her clear skin had a tinge, which at once suggested
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  and dismissed the thought of rouge. But beyond all doubt she had done her
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  hair with less reserve, and it was coppery hair of a volatile sort that
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  sprang into natural curls at the first relaxation of an undue discipline. Mister Clarkson
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  wondered whether his wife's departure had ought to do with the striking change in her
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  companion. The two young men rested mutually assured that it had. The old
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  girl keeps too close an eye on here, said little mister Hack, who
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  kept the books and hailed from Middlesex. Get it to yourself, Ted,
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  she's as larky as there made. Ted Radford, the stationervser, was a
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  person as not to be dismissed in a relative clause. He was a typical
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  back blocker, dry and nasally copture, insolently cool. Her fearless hand with
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  horse man or woman was a good friend to hack when there was no third
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  person of his own kidney to appreciate the overseer's conception of friendly chaff. They
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  were by themselves now. Yet the last speech drew from Radford a sufficiently sardonic
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  grin. You see if she is old man, said he, and all
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  stand by to collect your remains. Not but what she hasn't come off the
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  ice. It looks like thawing if you'd take her the right way. Ted
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  Radford was a confirmed believer in the rightness of his own way with all mankind.
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  His admirable confidence had not been shaken by a long succession of snubs in
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  the courter under discussion as a Miss Boovery was her practice to play off one
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  young man against the other by discouraging each in his turn. But this evening
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  she was a different being. She had a vague yet absolute conviction that her
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  fortune was made. She could have sung all her songs to the twain,
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  but for the reflection that mister Clarkson himself would hear them too and report the
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  matter to his wife on her return. And the next night, the male
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  trio was strangely absorbed in some station happening which did not arouse Miss Boovory's curiosity
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  in the least. They were excited and it constrained at dinner, and drew
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  their chairs close together on the verandah. Afterward, young lady caught at least
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  one word of which she did not know the meaning. She had the tack
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  to keep out of earshot after that, Nor was she very much more interested
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  when she met the two young men with revolvers in their hands the following day,
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  Going to fight a duel? She inquired, smilingly, for her heart
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  was still singing Grand Opera and oratorio. By turns moreless, returned the overseer
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  without his usual pleasantry, We're going to have a match at a target behind
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  the pines. The London bookkeeper looked at anxious clerk. The girl was glad
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  when she saw the pair alive. At dinner. There seemed to be little
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  doing. Though the summer was already tropical, there had been plenteous rains,
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  and mister Clarkson observed in Hill's hearing that the recent day's mustering would be the
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  last for some little time. She was thrown much in his company, and
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  she liked mister Clarkson, where Missus Clarkson was not there in his wife's hands.
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  The good man was wax, now a mere echo, now a veritable
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  clerk in himself. He pandered indefatigably to the multitudinous vanities of a ludicrously vain
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  woman. But it was soon Miss Boomery's experience that he could when he dared
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  the attentatively considerate of lesser ladies. In many ways, these were much the
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  happiest days that she had spent on the station. There were, however,
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  days of a consuming excitement for the caged and gagged nightingale that Hilda Boovery now
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  conceived herself to be. She sang not another note aloud. Mister Clarkson lived
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  in s slippers on the verandah, which hild her now associated chiefly with the
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  stranger's spurs. For of the booted and spurred stranger she was thinking incessantly,
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  though still without the emotions of an ordinarily romantic temperament. Would he be at
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  the concert? Or would he not? Would he turn out to be what
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  she firmly imagined him? Was she to find out her mistake? Might he
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  not, in any case have said or written some pregnant word for her?
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  Was it beyond the bounds of possibility that she should be asked to sing.
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  After all, the last question was the only one to be answered before the
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  time a less a point blank inquiry of missus Clarkson be included in the category.
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  The lady had returned with a gorgeous gown, only less full of her
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  experiences than of the crowning triumph yet to come. She had bought every song
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  of Sir Julian's to be had in Melbourne, and his name was always on
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  her lips. In a reckless moment, Miss Bovary had inquired his age.
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  I really don't know, missus Clarkson, what can it matter? Only wondered
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  whether he was a youngish man or not. Missus Clarkson had already raised her
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  eyebrows at this answer. There disappeared behind a toupet dating from her late descent
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  upon the Victorian capital. Really, miss Bovary, she said, and nothing
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  more in words. But the tone was intolerable, and its accompanying sneer a
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  refinement in vulgarity which only the really refined would have resented as it deserved.
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  Missus Boervy got up and left the room without a word, but her flaming
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  face left a misleading tale behind. She was not introduced to Sir Julian,
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  but that was not her prime disappointment. When the great Knight came or desire
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  for an introduction, all interest in the concert died a sudden death, and
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  hild A Bowery at her first glimpse of the gentleman who was duly presented to
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  missus Clarkson as Sir Julian Crumb. He was more than middle aged. He
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  wore a gray beard and the air of a somewhat supercilious martyr. His near
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  sight was obviated by double lenses in gold rims. Hilda could have wept before
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  the world. For nearly three weeks she had been bowing in imagination to a
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  very different Sir Julian, bowing as though she had never beheld him in her
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  life before. And yet in three minutes she saw how little reason she had
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  ever had for the illogical conclusion to which she had jumped. She searched for
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  the sprightly figure she had worn in her mind's eye. His presence under any
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  other name would still have been welcome enough now, but he was not there
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  at all. The patchy glare of the kerosene lamps against the bunting which lined
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  the corrugated walls of Gullum's new iron store. Among flower and weed of township
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  and of station, did miss Bovarie seek in vain for a single eye glass
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  and a military mustache. The concert began, Missus Boomery opened it herself with
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  the inevitably thankless pianoforte solo, in this case gratuitously meretricious into the bargain,
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  albeit the arbitrary choice of no lesser judge than missus Clarkson twas received with perfunctory
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  applause, through which dissipated Stockman thundered thickly for a song. Miss Boovery averted
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  her eyes from Sir Julian ensconced like royalty in the center of the first row,
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  as she descended from the platform. She had not the hardihood to glance
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  towards the great man until the indistinct Stockman had had his wish, and missus
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  Clarkson, in her fine new raiment, had both sung and acted a coy
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  ditty of the previous decade, where an every line began with the word somebody.
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  It was an immediate success. The obstraperous Stockman led the encore, but
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  miss Booverery, who Julie accompanied, extracted solace from the depressed attitude in which
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  Sir Julian Crumb said, looking down his nose. The township boasted its score
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  of dwellings, but few of them showed a light. That evening, not
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  less than ninety of the round hundred inhabitants clapped their hands and mocked their foreheads.
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  In Gullan's new store, it might have been run up for its present
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  purpose. There was an entrance at one end for the performers, and that
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  on the platform level, since the ground sloped a little, at the other
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  end, was the only other entrance by which the audience were admitted. A
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  makeshift lobby had been arranged behind the platform, and thither Missus Clarkson retired to
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  await her earlier on cause. When the compliment became a recognized matter of course,
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  she abandoned the mere form of a momentary retirement and stood patiently, smiling
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  at the satin borderss brought from Melbourne for the knots and for the brief intervals
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  between her efforts. She descended to a throne especially reserved on the great Musician's
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  right. The other performers did not dim her brilliant by reason of their own.
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  There was her own dear husband, whose serious recitation was the one entertaining
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  number. There was a rabbit inspector who wrapped out the scout in a defiant
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  baritone, and a publican whose somewhat uneven tenor was shaken to its debts by
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  the simple pathos of when sparrows build. Missus Clarkson could afford to encourage such
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  tyros with marked applause. The only danger was that Sir Julian might think she
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  really admired their untutored attempts. One must do it. She therefore took occasion
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  to expanish. He clapped, they're so nervous. The hard thing is to
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  put one's self in their place. It's nothing to me to sing a song,
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  Sir Julian, So I can see, madam, said he the extreme
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  end of the same rome. Miss Boovery passed her unemployed moments between mister Radford
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  and the wall, and was not easy. So she had signaled a little
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  mister Hack to occupy the seat behind her. With the two together, she
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  felt comparatively comfortable. Mister Radford's running criticism on the performers always pungent, was
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  often amusing when mister hack lost no opportunity of advancing his own ideals in the
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  matter of musical entertainment. A song in dance, said he again and again,
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  with a more and more separable deviltry. A song and dance is what
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  you want. You should have heard the sister's belt and in their palmy days
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  at the path. You don't get the best of everything out here, you
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  know, Ted. No, let's hope they've got some better men than you,
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  returned Radford, inspired by the corum of three, to make mincemeat of
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  his friend. It was the interval between parts one and two. The platform
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  was unoccupied. A cool draft blew through the iron building from open door to
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  open door. There was no occasion to go outside. They had done so.
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  However, at the lower end there was a sudden stampede of returning feet,
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  A something in the scuffling steps, a certain outcry that accompanied them,
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  caused Missus Boovery and her companions to turn their heads. They turned again at
• 26:07
  as sudden a jingle on the platform, and the girl caught her breath.
• 26:12
  There stood her missing hero, smiling on the people. Dapper swore, the
• 26:18
  booted spurred, and for one moment, the man she had reason to remember
• 26:22
  exactly as she remembered him. The next his folded arms sprang out from the
• 26:29
  shoulders, and a brace of long barreled revolvers covered the assembly up with your
• 26:34
  hands, every man of you, he cried, No, not the ladies,
• 26:38
  but every man and boy who doesn't want a bullet in his brain.
• 26:42
  The command was echoed an uncouth accents at the lower door, where in fact
• 26:47
  a bearded savage had driven an all and sundry at his pistol's point, and
• 26:51
  in a few seconds the meeting was one which had carried, by overwhelming show
• 26:56
  of hands, a proposition which the ladies alone saw occasion to dissent. You
• 27:00
  may have heard of me before, said the man on the platform, sweeping
• 27:04
  the forest of hands with his eye glass. My name's Stingaree tis the word
• 27:10
  which Hilda Boovery had heard on the veranda and had taken for some strange expleted.
• 27:15
  Who is he? She asked, in a whisper that bespoke excitement,
• 27:19
  agitation, but not alarm. The fancy bush ranger, the Dame Dee out
• 27:25
  Law, drawled Radford in cool reply, who have been expecting him? He
• 27:30
  was seen on our run the day Missus Clarkson went down to Melbourne, that
• 27:33
  memorable day for Hilda Boovery. And it was this manner of man who had
• 27:38
  been her hero ever since, a bush ranger, an outlaw, a common
• 27:45
  robber under arms. And you never told me, she cried in an indignant
• 27:51
  whisper. We never told Missus Clarkson either. You must blame the boss.
• 27:56
  Hilda snatched her eyes from Stingeree and was sorry for Missus Clarkson for the first
• 28:00
  time in their acquaintance. The new ball dress of bridal satin was no whiter
• 28:06
  than its wearer's face, which had aged several years in as many seconds.
• 28:11
  The squatter leant to water with uplifted hands, loyally, concerned for no one
• 28:15
  and for nothing else Between the couple. Sir Julian might have been conducting without
• 28:22
  his bats arm, but with both arms. Meanwhile, the flashing eyeglass had
• 28:26
  fixed itself on Miss Bouvory's companion, without resting for an instant. On Miss
• 28:32
  Bervory, silence over there, cried Stingery, sternly, I am here in
• 28:37
  a perfectly harmless errand you know anything about me at all? You may know
• 28:41
  that I have a weakness for the music of any kind, so long as
• 28:45
  it's good of its kind. The eyeglass dropped for a moment on missus Clarkson
• 28:49
  on the front row, and the irrepressible Radford was enabled to continue his say,
• 28:56
  he has two from a mouth organ to a full orchestra. From all
• 28:59
  accounts, Miss Boovery, my revolver is in the coat pocket next you.
• 29:03
  It is, the music continued, stingaree looking harder than before in their direction,
• 29:10
  which has brought me here to night. I've come to listen, and
• 29:14
  for no other reason in the world. Unfortunately, when one has a price
• 29:18
  upon one's head, one is to take certain precautions before venturing among one's fellow
• 29:22
  men. And although I am not here for again or bloodshed, if any
• 29:26
  man of you gives me trouble, I shall shoot him like a dog.
• 29:32
  It's one for me, whispered the intrepid overseer and lower key. Never mind,
• 29:37
  he's not looking at us now. I believe missus Clarkson's going to faint.
• 29:41
  You take what I told you and slip it under your shawl, and
• 29:44
  you'll save a second by passing it up to me. This instant, you
• 29:45
  see a sway Hioulda hesitated. A dead silence had fallen on the crowd and
• 29:52
  heated store, and in the silence Stingaree was already taking an unguarded interest in
• 29:57
  Missus Clarkson's appearance. She has certainly betokened to imminent collapse, now, whispered
• 30:03
  Radford, and Hilda hesitated no more. She was wearing a black lace shawl.
• 30:10
  Between her appearances at the piano, she had the revolver under from a
• 30:14
  twinkling and pressed it to her bosom with both hands while outside the shore,
• 30:18
  and one underneath, as who should hug a beating heart? Missus Clarkson said,
• 30:23
  Stingerye, you have been singing too much. The quality of your song
• 30:26
  has not been equal to the quantity sounded a brutal speech enough, and to
• 30:33
  do justice to a portion of the audience not hitherto remarkable for its spirit.
• 30:37
  The young gallant criticism was audibly resented in the back rows. The Maudland stockman
• 30:41
  had indeed to be restrained by his neighbors from precipitating himself upon the barrels of
• 30:45
  Stingeree. But the effect upon Missus Clarkson herself was still more remarkable, and
• 30:53
  revealed a subtle kindness in the Desperado's cruelty. Her pale face flushed, her
• 31:00
  lackluster eyes blazed forth their indignation. Her very clay was on fire for all
• 31:07
  the room to see. I don't sing for criminals and cutthroats, the indignant
• 31:14
  lady cried out. She glanced at Sir Julian as one for whom she did
• 31:18
  sing, And so Julian's eyes twinkled under the bushranger's guns. To be sure
• 31:23
  you don't, said Stingaree, with as much sweetness as his character would permit.
• 31:27
  You sing for charity and spend three times as much as you were ever
• 31:32
  likely to make an arraying yourself for the occasion. Well, we must put
• 31:36
  up with some song bird without fine feathers, for I mean to hear the
• 31:38
  programe out. His eyes ranged the front rose till they fell on Hilda Bowery
• 31:45
  in her corner. You young lady over there, you've been talking since I
• 31:48
  called for silence. You deserve to pay a penalty, be good enough to
• 31:52
  step this way. Hilda's excitement may be supposed it made her scandalously ray and
• 32:00
  that company of humiliated men and women, but did not rob her of her
• 32:05
  resource, removing her ashore with apparent haste, but with calculated deliberation. She
• 32:10
  laid it in a bunch upon the seat which she had occupied, and stepped
• 32:15
  forward with a courage that won a cheer from the back rows. Stingaree stooped
• 32:20
  to hand her up to the platform, and his warm grip told a tale.
• 32:24
  This was what he had come for, to make her sing, To
• 32:29
  make her sing before Sir Julian Crumb, to give her a start. Unique
• 32:32
  in the history of the platform and the stage. Criminal was he than the
• 32:37
  dearest, kindest, most enchanting, most romantic criminal the world has ever seen.
• 32:43
  But she must be worthy of his chivalry and her chance, and from
• 32:47
  the first her artistic egoism assisted that she was. Stingaree had picked up a
• 32:53
  program and dexterously mounted it between hammer and cartridge of the revolver, which he
• 32:58
  had momentarily relinquished, much as a corner player mounts his music under his nose.
• 33:02
  With both weapons once more leveled, he consulted the program. Now,
• 33:07
  the next item, ladies and gentlemen, he said, is another piero forte
• 33:12
  solo by this young lady. We'll let you off that miss Booverery, since
• 33:15
  you've got to sing. The next song of the program is called the Unrealized
• 33:20
  Ideal, and the music is by our distinguished visitor and patron, Sir Julian
• 33:24
  Crumb. In happier circumstances, it would have been sung to you by Missus
• 33:30
  Montgomery Clarkson. As it is. I call upon this Boovy to realize her
• 33:36
  ideal and ours, and on Sir Julian Crumb to accompany her if he will.
• 33:42
  At Missus Clarkson's stony side, the great man dropped both arms at the
• 33:45
  superb impudence of the invitation. Quite right, Sir Julian. Let the blood
• 33:52
  run into them, said Stingaree. It is a purer oversight that you were
• 33:54
  not exempted in the beginning. Comply with my entreaty, and I guarantee that
• 33:59
  you should. I'll suffer no further inconvenience, Sir Julian wavered. In London,
• 34:05
  he was a clubman and a diner out And what a tale for the
• 34:07
  Athenaeum, What a short cut to every ear at a Kensington's dinner table.
• 34:14
  In the end it would get into the papers. That was the worst of
• 34:16
  it. But in the midst of Sir Julian's hesitation, his pondering eyes met
• 34:22
  those of Miss Boovery on fire to sing him his own song alight with the
• 34:28
  ability to do it justice, and Sir Julian was lost. How she sang
• 34:35
  it, may be guessed. Sir Julian bowed and swayed upon a stool Stingaree
• 34:39
  stood by with a smile of personal pride and responsibility, but with both revolvers
• 34:45
  still leveled and one of them cocked. It was a better song than he
• 34:50
  had supposed. It gained enormously from the composer's accompaniment. The last verse was
• 34:55
  softer than another would have made it, and yet the singer obeyed, anaudible
• 34:59
  and struck as though she had never saw it otherwise. It was more in
• 35:04
  a tuneful whisper than in hushed. Note that the last words left her lips
• 35:08
  lightly. I spared when hope was high and youth beguiled. The chase I
• 35:14
  follow follow still that I shall never see her face. The applause when it
• 35:22
  came was almost overwhelming. The bush ranger watched and smiled, but cocked a
• 35:28
  second pistol and let the program fluttered to the floor. As for Sir Julian
• 35:32
  Crumb, the self contained, the cynical. He was seen for an instant
• 35:37
  wheeled about on the music stool, grasping the singer by both hands. But
• 35:42
  there was no hearing what he said. The girl herself heard nothing until he
• 35:45
  bellowed in her ear. They'll have their own care. What can you give
• 35:50
  them? Must be something they know. Home, sweet home. The last
• 35:53
  rose within a mile the first day, very well to leave out of Patty's
• 36:00
  book, But so were they all. And he struck the opening bars and
• 36:05
  the key of his own song. But for some moments, Hildo Bovarie sat
• 36:09
  bereft of her great voice, A leaf out of Patty's book, in that
• 36:15
  up country township, before a room full, held in terror, and yet
• 36:19
  unmindful of the loaded pistols of two bloodthirsty bush rangers, the singer prayed for
• 36:25
  power to live up to those golden words. A leaf out of Patty's book.
• 36:32
  It was over. The last poignant note trembled into nothingness. The silence,
• 36:38
  absolutely dead for some seconds, was then only broken by a spirituous sob
• 36:45
  from the incorrigible stockman. There was never any applause at all, ere it
• 36:51
  came even as it was coming the overseer. Radford leaped to his feet with
• 36:54
  a raucous shout. The bush ranger had vanished from the platform, and the
• 37:00
  bush ranger had disappeared through the other door. The precious pair of them had
• 37:02
  melted from the room, unseen, unheard. What time every eye doated on
• 37:07
  handsome hilled a bouvary, and every ear on the simple words and moving cadences
• 37:13
  of home, sweet Home ted. Radford was the first to see it,
• 37:16
  for by the end of the brief song he had his revolver uncovered and cocked
• 37:20
  at last, and no quarry left for him to shoot. With a bound
• 37:22
  he was on the platform. Another carried him into the canvas ante room,
• 37:27
  a third and a fourth out into the moonlight. It was as bright as
• 37:30
  noon, and a conservatory of smoke glass, and in the tinted brightness,
• 37:35
  one man was already galloping away, But it was Stingaree, who danced with
• 37:38
  one foot only in the stirrup of a milk white near. Radford rushed up
• 37:44
  to and fired point blank, again and again. A series of metallic clicks
• 37:49
  was all the harm he did, for Stingaree was in the saddle before the
• 37:52
  hurled revolver struck the mare in the ribs and set the pair flying through the
• 37:57
  moonlight with a shout of laughter, a cloud of sand, and a dull
• 38:00
  volley of thunderous hooths. The overseer picked up his revolver and returned crestfallen to
• 38:07
  examine it in the lights of the emptying room. Who could have sworn I
• 38:10
  loaded it? Said he? If I had, he'd been a dead man
• 38:15
  six times over. Missus Boovery had been talking to Sir Julian Crumb on Radford's
• 38:22
  entry. She had grown distraught, but at Radford's speech she turned back to
• 38:25
  Sir Julian's shining eyes. My wife wants a companion for the voyage, she
• 38:31
  was saying, So that will cost you nothing. But if anything the other
• 38:35
  way, and once in London, I'll be answerable. I have adjudicated these
• 38:39
  things for years to voices not in the same class as yours. But the
• 38:44
  worst of it is you won't stay with us. I will No, They'll
• 38:49
  want you a Covent garden before we know where we are. When you are
• 38:52
  ready to go to them, go you must. I shall do what you
• 38:58
  tell me. Then speak to Missus Clarkson at once hilde Boverie glanced over her
• 39:04
  shoulder, but her employers had left the building. The smile was less roguish
• 39:08
  than demure. There is no need, said Julie. Missus Clarkson has already
• 39:14
  spoken to me, though only in a whisper. But I am to take
• 39:17
  myself off by the next couch. End of chapter one,