Approaches. The Poor Scholar's Quest of a Mecca. A novel

Front matter

APPROACHES And tell me ofthe secret of my heart, Where every impulse sweeps with rising pain, As forcing outlet for a higher part, That bends my hopes, my life, to fiercer strain, . . . Till flung within my prison walls again. Yea, must I then with patience hear my yoke ? To do what near me I have found the best ? And kill my thought, and wage a meaner stroke f And hold my rebel longings all repressed, That throb like living things within my breast ? No, let me cling to my true life's desire, If but it call from out the sovl of me Resistance to the depths and strength and fire, And hope to overfling a harsh decree, And gain that world where I am whole and free. APPROACHES THE POOR SCHOLAR'S QUEST OF A MECCA % loM IN THREE VOLUMES BT ARTHUR LYNCH Author of ''Modern Authors" VOL. I EDEN, REMINGTON & CO PUBLISHERS LONDON and SYDNEY. 1892 \_All rights reserved] CONTENTS. VIRGIN SOIL. PAQE

CHAPTER IX

103 PAGE

Chapter 1

1 Illness. The Milk of Human Kindness. Tarylvale. The Brandts. Local Colour. The Defender of the Faith. Jack Clancy and Sam Chubb. " Thou art Smitten." A Philosopher. Ben Church.

CHAPTER X

112

Chapter II

• 30 Examinations. Home. Mauvais quart d'heure. Gillie's " First Drunk." The Mother. Parting. SOWING THE SEED.

CHAPTER XI

129

Chapter III

36 The Backslider. Arrival. Joseph. Gills. Langden. Romanoff.

CHAPTER XII

134 A Good Woman.

CHAPTER XIII.

... 144 La bonne Tenue. Bubblings. The Feast of Reason. Miss Lyddiard. Tbe Flavour of the Ancient Days. Mac. Murray.

CHAPTER XIV.

... 157 Athletics. to koXov.

Chapter VIII

... 98 Solitude. Intellectual Sins. On the Summum Bonum. CONTENTS VI PAGE PAGE

CHAPTER XXV.

... 277 Failure.

CHAPTER XIX.

... 212 The Dazed Flight. " That Gentleman There." The Irish Party. He. She. A Practical Politician. The Verandah.

CHAPTER XX

220

CHAPTER XXVI.

... 301 Lacy. The Training of Horses. The Training of Men. " The Land of Dreams." " Outcrop of Foolish Young Enthusiasm." Shelley.

CHAPTER XXI.

... 228 Olympian Games and British Sports.

CHAPTER XXII.

... 238 The Inimitable Jimmy.

CHAPTER XXVII.

... 309 " Sad as Night." The Veil. Fire Flies. The Paper Chuse. Tbe Merry England. The Streets.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

... 323 " A Love Bower."

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

... 255 In the Toils.

CHAPTER XXIX.

... 337 Gillie's ProgresB. As Dreams are Made of. Cvnic. Diogenes' Lantern. The Black Art. Undone. Central Fires. The Web.

CHAPTER XXX.

The Vestibule of — 344 Confidantes. VOL. II. PAGE AS DAYS WEAR ON.

CHAPTER II

26 " So was the Handsome Clive." The Dream of a Fair PAGE

Chapter I

1 Woman. Gills' Fancy for Quackery. Fanny. Dust. Commercial Principles, The Weight of Gold. Sentiment. Forecasts. Gorge-bait. The Cup Race. " The Primrose Path of Paralysis. Death. Dalliance." Obituary. Weeds. " Gillie's Governor.'' " The Uses of Adversity.'' CONTENTS VII PAGE SEEKING OUTLET.

Chapter VI

... -100 Occluded Soul. The Children. ". On the Left" and " On the Right." The Poor Scholar. " The Everlasting Yea." The Touch of Innocence. The Word made Flesh. The Voices of the Wood. " More Exquisite than Vases."

Chapter IV

43 The Transcendental Self. " The Spilling Tears." " Apologia." From Girlhood.

CHAPTER X

151 Accounts Rendered. Mary. The Talisman.

CHAPTER XI

162 The Top of the Hill. " Auld Robin Gray." A Nation before Us. " Sudden a Thought " For the Child's Sake." " She is Dead." For Mercy— Forgiveness. came like a Full Blown Rose." BETWEEN TWO LIVES. The Outset.

Chapter V 76

CHAPTER XII

185 The Growth of Faith. Mary Neville. " Truth is the Innermost Kernel of all that is Great." Tales out of School. " The Good Little Crock.: Neatly Tucked Up. Material Obstacles. Enduring Structures. Aualysis of Love. THE COMING HOME-

CHAPTER XIII

214

Chapter VI

98 The Sweet Puritan. Yes, Austin. The Good Ship. Austin. Three Pioneers. The Mignonette. The " Orbed Drop." THE END. VIRGIN SOIL.

Chapter I

In lands remote enough from ours and under other skies we pitch our story. For there too live kindred who call the common earth mother, and as who live their own secluded life ancl toil in their narrow bounds and gather here pleasure and reap now sorrow, they prattle out their little world. The world of mystery sweeps about them and more wonderful than they dream guides them; its tremulous waves bear the beatings of their pulses and in this great all of life mingle them with ours. And in this remote land secluded in a VOL. I. B APPROACHES. pretty village our story takes its orgin. It is the remnant of what was once a busy little town. Its rise and fall occupied but one generation. Let us first contemplate the scene before its quiet was broken by the din of human voices. — A range, or series of ranges of hills, mounting, terraced, irregular, is met with towards the North ; at the base flows a stream or rivulet, continuing within sight miles westward.

Near to our point of view, following its course there breaks out from the winding chain a spur terminating some what abruptly in a hill which overlooks the stream; on the opposite side, the land shelves slowly upward towards the southern slope, leaving a broad valley between ; while far away to the setting sun the walls and terraced banks, diminishing and broken up, are in the remoter distance flanked by a bolder range which, running south, forms the contour of the horizon. It is a semi amphitheatre, the broken walls crumbliDo* for measureless ages ; the arena neglected, invaded, — the ruin of a mighty colosseum of APPROACHES. an ancient race of gods ! — No. Rather let us contemplate it, more at ease, and familiar. Thrown before us broad, open — the scene is cheerful, friendly, enduring. The sky seems to us never so blue as here ; the air is free and blithe, and has a sweet refreshment in its taste.

The sun sets wonderfully behind the long range, the rampart of the hills. The men who came to dwell there had little thought of landscapes in their minds. Gold had been found near the banks of the stream, below the projecting hill. The news had spread like wild-fire. This solitude — all at once, behold a scene of bustling, active life; it was a •'•rush," and they swarmed there in thousands, like an army of conquest encamped, a redoubtable city of tents, but peace and goodwill was the banner of the glorious bivouac there. Freedom, hope, the yellow gold ; freedom, hope, the yellow gold ; freedom, hope, the yellow gold ! That was anthem enough. They were giants of men ! They laughed in their toil. Hurrah for the APPROACHES. bold pioneers, these Argonauts doughty, these men of our race, bold and sturdy enough to conquer a world. £ Visions of wealth, what wealth can bring, were swimming in their eyes ; but the gold was already the earnest, the yellow gold was the conquest, the prize.

It was a possessing* fever, a delightful plunder, crowned with the A*oluptuous transports of gain and enjoyment at last. The lucky one whose pick had struck the nugget from the earth might well feel dazzled, for there flinging back his candle's light into his eyes, the gold was blazing there. The field had been a good one. Solid houses soon replaced the hasty tents. A town was formed, streets laid out, roads made. Public buildings were soon erected ou the spot ; and Duncan's Hill, as they named it, now looked down upon one of the most active little towns in all the British Empire. A few years rolled on. Other gold fields and still others had been found along the APPROACHES. course of the little stream ; Avondale, Illabarook, Break-o'-day, Drungdrung, Ondit, Pinchgut, Nintingbool, Mannibaddar — and of all the district with its swarming popula tion the pride of all was Tarylvale.

Wheat and potatoes year by year yield their harvest to the labours of the faithful husbandman. A village depending on such produce may be slow, but is on the whole sure. The gold once taken from the earth, the meagre soil here was little worth. The gold yield grew less and less. The more eager spirits left. Still, there was good reward for steady work. Many had brought wives there, and many had married there. Their children had thriven in the air that blew round Tarylvale ; schools had been erected ; young life was everywhere astir, happy urchins never tired of play, bright eyed little dames trudging decently along with the satchel in the hand. Tarylvale was their home and they clung to it fondly. The elders too had an affection for the place where they had prospered, whose pro gress they had seen before their eyes, whose APPROACHES. little politics they had helped to order, and with whose associations years had given an endearing familiarity.

Still the supply of gold became less and less. The more prudent left while it was yet time to shift well for themselves in newer fields. Others cling on till poverty begins to press, forcing them at last to seek elsewhere a sojourn. They called their new homes, when they had thriven, by names taken from the old spot, and loved to return year by year to see old friends, until each succeeding year made the record of those they missed drearier and drearier. Tradesmen departed, houses were removed. Tarylvale now wears a sleepy, dull, deserted look. And here, near the bottom of the hill, at some distance from its neighbours, stands a house whose comfortable appearance shows one of goodly substance in the town. Be hind, on one side is a flower garden, on the other fruit. Well-endowed and well-grown too is the garden.

Behind this, again, is a long stretch of open land fenced in along APPROACHES. the little stream, a paddock, as they called it, on which a horse and a cow and an emu are grazing quietly together ; and bordering, within the fence along the stream, is a row of well-grown English and, alternately, Australian trees. Opposite and skirting the fence nearest the house is a thick hedge of hawthorn. It was towards evening of a day at the end of summer that two figures, in fact those of Matthew Brandt, Manager of the Golden Club Gold Mining Coy., and his spouse, were wending their way slowly along the path which ran by this hedged fence, and continued then close by the little river. It was their favourite walk in the cool of the evening, and as they walk but slowly we may have opportuuity to note down their appearance.

Their characters in as far as not displayed by outward form we may learn to know a little nearer later on. Matthew Brandt was at this time well up towards his sixtieth year. His figure was above middle-height, deep-chested, well limbed, and erect. His step, his carriage, APPROACHES. showed solidity and strength. There was an unmistakable dignity, a sort of uncon scious pride about his stalk, for he walked slowly and with long steps, his shoulders thrown back and his head set squarely on. We have for a moment left his wife be hind ; so had he, for he was occupied with his own thoughts ancl his long steps were continually bringing him a little in advance of her; he used to stop now and then till she was even with him. Wrapped in a shawl, this made her short and comfortable figure look shorter and stouter than it was ; her features were plain but well-formed, rather large but regular ; the expression serious, one might almost have thought too much so, were it not that the deep look of the eyes was so gentle, the lines of the face so patient.

His cheeks, what was seen from the full beard, were ruddy, his head was massive, the forehead drawn into a thoughtful mould. The features had a firm set. The eye alone showed fire. It looked straight out with a dauntless look. APPROACHES. Matthew Brandt had come from Kentucky as a young man here. His physique might have come from Indian blood, though he was said to have descended from an old French stock. His grave demeanour might well have become a Puritan, but he professed himself a Roman Catholic. She had looked several times into his face, and, at length, and in a peculiar gentle voice, remarked — Austin's time is drawing very close now. Yes. He seems in great spirits at the thought •of going to the University, though to be sure he has never been away from home before. H'm ! What does he say?

Oh, nothing. Only that he hopes to do well there. He says we must write every week — and so on. And so the conversation was taken up at times, quaint enough in its reticence, indeed, where each knew what was passing in the other's mind. Austin, their eldest son, a APPROACHES. youngster of about sixteen, home-fed hitherto, was about to leave them to try his mettle, to shape a course. The University of Dudley was to be his " kind mother." Successful, accomplished, their pride and vanity pictured him ; but there is a freshness in the con fidence of boyhood, in the feelings of a home-like life, whose free impulses draw the bands closer of love. With people like these, secluded, the current of feeling powerful, unscattered, runs deep. The change from boyhood to manhood, the doing some thing with a life.

Yes, doubtless, this sincere gravity of Matthew Brandt was well becoming. He added, after a long pause — I have great hopes of him, if his health holds up. The fellow has a wonderful brain for mathematics. Yes, yes, said the mother, eagerly — here were topics on which, as only mothers can, she could dilate — and for history, and the whole of those books about the old Greek philosophers he has read, and it's wonderful — APPROACHES. With investiture that looms away out of the compass of our vain attempt, to infinity, it seems, familiar things are brought to us. Life, its interest, variety, is not measured by the show of formal acts alone. From the habit of thought, the depth of feeling, the zest and spirit of the individual self, our world takes form and colour. To dine, to walk, to enjoy the fresh air, these are the bountiful gifts of the earth, rated not highly.

To dine, to walk with Shelley, to feel the bounding of his eager pulse, were fascination. John Keats by a few bold and happy strokes can throw a landscape before our eyes. Not mere accidents are these ; nor if, truth to say, a beautiful woman casts a favour by her shadow, is beauty's self. Culture we speak of from books, from music, sculpture, painting, and we may press the term too far. The fine sentiment is great, the living act transcends it. Whither the building up of sentiment ? Where the out let ? Excellent to con, no doubt, and fitly to admire the records ofthe past. — Your Crom wells, Fredericks, William of Orange, your APPROACHES. Wallensteins, whomsoever you may please, of still more dubious repute ; but the business of the nascent hour is pressing on ourselves ; that hour is fraught with import, mystery, deeper, and greater alike than toiling sons of Earth have ever known before.

Let us know our own world, be native to the times, be real ; nothing of beauty will we lose ; nay, then will gradually and at the happy moments, like the dawning of the day that lifts the darkness from the earth, come floods of wonder on our souls and worship which we struggle but all vainly to contain. The touch of life — all else bears worth but inas much as it in myriad developed forms im pinges so. Austin was sallying out for a walk, but spying his father and mother returning, returned with them a dutiful furlong. His likeness to both was striking, but with a contrast : figure not tall, slight — miserable, the father said ; yet his step and carriage he had got from him. Of the mother's cast of feature, the lines of his face were as delicate APPROACHES. as a girl's. Her eye was slow, and patient ; his look direct, earnest, and as though a fire smouldered beneath.

He turned and walked rapidly away. The mother's eye had rested on the countenance and looked with fond pride upon the gallant bearing of the boy. The father had measured the figure, and it had not filled his eye. Such a type had never been known on either side of the house before ; he thought there must be something wrong in this effeminate child. Meanwhile Austin had crossed the stream and had struck up into a path leading round the hill. Every step showed keener stuff within than Matthew Brandt had warranted ; his spirit too was leaping in its strength. The solitary customary walk brought with it all the charm they find who know the sweets of solitude — flowing thoughts and bold imaginations. Eager, in the fresh cool air, he strode along, his pulses beating to a manful tune. Diving into the bush he struck into a track his own feet had trod a thousand times.

With quicker step and head tossed back, APPROACHES. while the cool wind played upon the cheek, his heart was beating to imaginings of deeds and thoughts of noble work, thoughts of strife, perhaps battle — his spirit swelled to be equal to its call. To follow truth. The right. To control my life by this. I pray for this. I pray for this. I could die for this. Yague, nebulous, these dreamings ; things beyond him were already marking him. Our lives are driven more than that we know to lead. Yet premonitions are within the bones, and in the rising aura of the brain. The world around about was beautiful enough ; between the trees his eyes looked far away to dim receding distances, and out into the unfathomable blue. Tbe cool fresh air, the triumph of health that raced along his blood, the immeasurable distance of ex tended shapes, the teeming glow of earth with its infinity of life and all resource, the blue, the deep unfathomable sky ; all this was to him like the partaking of a simple sacrament.

A worshipper even now he was, one who drank from a pure well inexhaustible, hopeful, still within imagination's APPROACHES. 15 realm, free of the demesne, wing-sandalled. His soul dilated now with this divinity of life. His eye strained and in the distance he beheld his own home. The smoke ascended lazily from the chimneys ; embosomed in its trees the old home had a grateful comfort. Upon the bough of a tree, leaning, he looked long, and the tears rose. The life that I have lived so sweetly here is past. What have they for me, the developing years ? Now wonderful seems to me life ; and wonderful love. Life itself — to leap into the arena, to feel the tug of strife, the play of power. I must work. 0, make my life true. I stretch up my hands to God ! With maiden mind absorbed, with multitudinous feelings all perturbed, and hope supremely reigning, Austin strode along his homeward way.

Hallo, Austin ! called out a lusty voice, and beside a windlass, enjoying their evening meal, sat Jack Clancy there and old Sam Chubb. Where are you bound for now ? Ah ! said Austin, laughing, crossing over, I didn't know that you were working here. The other claim turned out a duffer, eh ? APPROACHES. She did. And how is this one going with you ? Why, only middling, Mr. Brandt, said Sam. It was a peculiarity of Sam's (he was a desperate character in his cups and some times required half-a-dozen policemen to hold him —but this was only once or twice a year — and Washington stipulated with his gardener that he could be so often drunk, — and he toiled for the rest of the twelve months, day by day, like a Trojan), to be in general the politest and mildest mannered man that ever broke a head on Boxing-day.

The water was gaining on us, so we are working a little late to-night to keep it clown. But sit down, Austin, me bhoy, quoth Jack, full heartily. Here take a dhrink of tay, and he poured the hospitable liquor into the lid of his billycan. Austin drank. Good, said Jack, taking a gulp. Do you remember that bottle of beer you once brought us that terrible hot day, you remember ? APPROACHES. Austin nodded and laughed. Bedad ! said Sam — for many a year the two had toiled together aud he sometimes made use of Jack's expressions in courtesy — Bedad ! said he, reflectively, if my mother had given milk like that I'd have been a suckling till now. I'm getting a bit on in the years, though, Mr. Brandt, and it's a hard graft this, and not much in it now; and in Sam's mind rose up the recollection of the good old days when he could put down his £20 to back Mat Hardy against the renowned " Rough Diamond from California, gentlemen."

He sighed. Pooh ! said Austin, sipping his tea, you live here better than princes. You're your own masters, and you have here just enough exercise to keep you healthy. Jack Clancy laughed hugely, and Sam's look of gravity broadened much. Why, yes — and Sam held a meditative piece of pasty between his fingers — I have been in worse places than this. In Adelaide, Oh my Heaven will I ever forget that ! We vol. I. APPROACHES. were besieged by them accursed snakes too. Snakes, — serpents ! I call them. He munched quietly at his pasty, and Jack balanced his billycan expectantly. He had heard the yarn a hundred times before. Yes, sir, serpents. A colony of them ! One day I was pursued by them — they got to know me perhaps going by so often — and if I hadn't had one of the best horses a man ever threw his legs over under me — he was one of the Panic breed, you know them, Jack.

Jack nodded with interest. Sam Chubb, sir. Sam Chubb would not be here to-day. The boss serpent was leading them. He ate his pasty in a reflective mood, but Austin knew Sam too well to think it was all over. Well, he inquired with great gravity, how long do you judge such a snake, I mean the serpent, the boss serpent, would be ? Sam's air told plainly that when a man has been through adventures all his life he does not insist too much. It's your tyro who asseverates. Well, said he, next day I brought my APPROACHES. men together, and we killed him. A bullock dray loaded with wool was passing at the time, and we threw the beast on top of it. Well, sir, the head touched the ground on one side, and the tail, the tail, sir, the tail touched the ground on the other. Actshully. Jack heaved a deep sigh.

Ah ! It was his usual accompaniment to Sam's stories. They ate their repast with huge appetites, like men who had earned it, that is to say ; and as they drew out their pipes Jack felt that there was a call on him too. The waves off the Cape of Good Hope Austin had heard of a dozen times, and Jack's adventure with Blue Cap, the bushranger, who had " stuck him up," and whom he had quietly brought along with him to the gaol, was quite well known, and he was modest on the point. And so you're going to Dudley, to the University, to be sure. Ah ! then you'll see the Exhibition. Ah ! the '51 in London, that was the sight. Well, the English manufac turers, mighty sharp fellows, too, in Bir mingham — Sam nodded — thought they APPROACHES. would just show what they could do, and they made a needle as small, sir, as they could make one, and sent it to China.

China sent it back ! Here, Sam, hand me that piece of wire, there's something in my pipe. Jack prodded away assiduously at his pipe, and Austin chuckled inwardly. Ah, that's got it. Yes, sir, China sent it back. He looked Austin attentively in the face, but Austin was stoical as an Indian. Well, of course the Birmingham coves didn't know what to make of that, for China has the reputation, ye know, that is the real tip-toppers, ye know, not the pack — and he used very tough language — not the * * we have here, but the real Pan-jams, I'm telling ye, have the reputation of being the politest nation under — under the face of the globe. At last, turning it over and over in their minds, they screwed the top off, and inside, b' St. Patrick, there was another needle ! And they screwed off the top of that, and found another needle, and that had APPROACHES. a screw on it, and they screwed that off.

I don't like to give you the exact number — I might be wrong a point here or there — but I tell you it was one of the neatest little things that China ever did. Ah ! Actshally ! said Sam. Austin rose, and Sam and Jack rose too. Well, how's the claim? Oh, I don't know how this'll go, said Jack. Paddy (his second hopeful) washed the tailings there and got some good specks off the dish. It's on the old Try-again lead too that runs up the flat there. But just as we are near the bottom now the water's coming in with a bit of a rush. We've been making sets all day. You can't dam it ? Oh, no ; it's just a p'int of letting it come in, an' bailing it out. Yes, sir, added Sam, and when we can't do that, sir, it's a case of " fresh fields and partridges " with us ! Sam, we ought to have said, had something of a turn for literature.

Och, by the way, Austin, you're going to APPROACHES. be an engineer. Just tell me now how high we are above that creek ? Austin cast a rapid calculation from the distance and the fall. Well, roughly, 80 feet at least. Didn't I tell you ? said Jack to Sam in triumph. Sam, ye're always taking the black look at things ! If it was only the 50, as you said, we'd be below water level, and we'd have to bail that stream dry. We'll be all right, Sam, now. If we can't manage it ourselves we will have to enlarge the Company, and get bigger buckets. Eh, Sam ? Why, yes, said Sam ; that is if our young friend is right. Austin made a rough templet with two sticks and looked again. Yes, Jack, was his verdict, that's a good deal more than 50. And then Sam drew with a stick a sketch — the whole lay of the auriferous leads under ground, the histories and value of the yields of which he knew like a book.

Sam, in fact, was a great authority. The way he handled APPROACHES. 23 the terms " Old Silurian," " disintegratinu action of the water," and so on, doubtless contributed much to this. Sam's long ex perience, and, in his business, shrewd common sense, gave him certainly a grip of the local geological conditions, and his manifold lore upon all mining matters made him in any company worth two or three extra men at the pick ; and as he related the history of the working of the leads, and of the " piles " that were made, and the pluck of the old miners who had made the place, and the hard luck bravely encountered ; and when Austin thought of Sam's rowdy days, when he used to figure in the fistic ring himself till he " married the proper woman,'' as he said, and brought up thirteen children ; the young ster pictured it out like a romance.

Sam, or perhaps it was " the proper woman," had contrived to save some money, too, and his little home had one of the nicest gardens in Tarylvale iu front. Sam's appearance did not indicate sentiment, but he was a famous gardener. Jack Clancy's proper trade was that of a shoemaker, but the town had gone down, APPROACHES. and Jack, too, had a dozen youngsters ; so he had initiated his eldest son into the mysteries of the craft and left the shop to his care, and being strong as an ox had shouldered his pick again, and picked away for the treasures that never were to come. He "knocked out a living," as he said, though, and as he thought of his ruddy cheeked urchins with Irish names and healthy appetites, and one of them, Mickie, the " smartest scholard in the school," his stout heart smote cheerfully enough.

They shook hands heartily with Austin, and wished him more blessings than he could with modesty have carried ; and as he leapt lightly over a fence and disappeared from sight, and they wound away at the windlass, Jack declared with some emphasis that Austin Brandt would turn out the proper sort ; and Sam chewed his quid of tobacco with a certain " sad sincerity," and added — Tbat is if he doesn't go into a decline. I know how books weighs on a man's mind. Austin caught up old Ben Church a little further on as tbat worthy individual was APPROACHES. wending his way homeward, axe on shoulder, and had stopped to gaze upon the sun that was setting now beyond the blue line of the distant hills. Old Ben Church was carter to the mine — bluff, broad-chested, grizzled, and rough. He was honest as the day.