Page:Outlawandlawmak00praegoog.djvu/65

Rh He had the Irish gift of eloquence. He had that terrible Irish passion, and he had the pluck of the typical Irishman, and a certain dash of poetry and pathos and romance that is typical also of Ireland. There was about him, too, a dash of mystery. No one knew quite what he did, where he came from, and where he got the money which he scattered so freely. The women adored him, and women have a powerful voice at election times. He was something of the preux chevalier, though he represented the Radical interest. All this Elsie gleaned from the glowing descriptions in the Goondi Chronicle, which was on his side, and the sneering remarks of the Luya Times, which was on theirs. It was very easy to read between the lines. Frank Hallett was safe, steady, eminently estimable, but he was not picturesque. The other was picturesque, and that was enough to make Elsie wildly anxious to see him. But probably he was not safe, steady, nor eminently estimable. She had her wish on that very day when she had suggested to Ina that they should go to Goondi. She had gone down to the crossing—her own favourite crossing—the place where she had met Hallett. Perhaps she had a lingering fancy that Hallett might ride that way and she would hear some news—something to enliven the deadly dullness of the life at the Humpey. Elsie was getting very tired of life at the Humpey, and was beginning to sigh for her Leichardt's Town parties, and the bank clerks, and young gentlemen in the Government offices, who out of the Parliamentary season made up the roll of her admirers. She had taken her book with her, for, unlike Ina, Elsie was fond of reading. It was a book which Hallett had brought her—a book she had often heard of and had never yet read. The book was a translation—Goethe's Elective Affinities.

There was a nook of the creek, set back from Lord Horace's bridge, and out of sight of any passer-by who might cross the bridge. A gnarled ti-tree jutted into the stream—a little tree peninsula. It had great twisted roots covered with ferns, with pale tufts of the scentless mauve violet. The branches of the ti-tree bent down and dipped