“Damned, benighted Irishmen!” McFee accused them mockingly. “Always complaining of your lot. You should learn a good Scots song. Stow your gab, the two of you, and I’ll give you The Road to the Isles.” his
A quarter of a mile down the road, the man Billy Lawless had nicknamed Dingo heard the singing and, in frantic haste, drove his buggy off the road. Safely hidden behind a screen of trees, his hand over his horse’s nostrils, he waited anxiously until the riders had gone past.
Only when both hoofbeats and singing were out of earshot did he venture back onto the road, dragging the unwilling horse after him with angry curses.
It had been a near-run thing, he reflected sourly. He had almost run slap into them. But, praise be, he had heard their caterwauling in time, and they had had no idea he was there. Climbing back into the buggy, he whipped up the weary horse and hummed a little tune of his own.
Nelly would be pleased, he told himself gleefully.
They would get the reward for Michael Wexford and maybe a bit more, if the others were taken as well.
And the Magpie would be theirs into the bargain, with the Lawless Gang behind bars, unable to lay claim to it.
He was still humming when he drew up outside the inn and, jumping stiffly down, hammered on the door for admission.
There was a note from Patrick at the Cobb and Company booking office in Bendigo, addressed to Kitty and marked “To Await Arrival.”
She seized upon it eagerly but gleaned little from it, save the fact that he intended to visit the Bundilly station and that he had been able to hire a horse from the coach company’s livery stable, at what he described as “a very reasonable rate.”
In a postscript, he had added:
There are wanted posters displayed here for the apprehension of Michael-under the name Wexford-with a reward of l150 offered. I have just come across one and have opened this letter in order to warn you and John of it. We must make haste, Kit, or it will be too late.
The date on the letter, Johnny noticed, indicated that Patrick was still almost three weeks ahead of them.
He did not draw Kitty’s attention to this, hoping thereby to curb her impatience, but-whether or not she had noticed the date-the sight of one of the wanted posters her brother had warned of had precisely the effect Johnny had been dreading. Since the episode in the Criterion Hotel in
Melbourne, his wife had maintained a coolly polite attitude toward him, which, though he tried to hide it, he was finding at once hurtful and irritating. And, he told himself a trifle sourly, as she hurried him, hungry and unshaven, to the
William Stuart Long
livery stables, it was also unjust. Throughout the long, twelve-hour drive in the swaying coach, Kitty had scarcely addressed two words to him, while conversing at length with several of their fellow passengers.
One couple-the husband a sheep farmer-had talked of William Broome with envy and admiration.
“The best fellow in the world” had been the farmer’s opinion, expressed with evident sincerity. “Came here at the right time, Will Broome did, when the land was there for the taking-and Will took it. I’d hesitate to hazard a guess as to what he’s worth now, or how much land he owns. Hundreds of thousands of acres, anyway, like most of the early squatters.
When I got here, there wasn’t a great deal left, and the government upped the price to three or four times what the squatters paid for their grazing. Some of the diggers, when they struck it rich, were willing to meet the official price, but me-why, like I said, I came too late, and I never found an ounce of gold dust, still less any of those big nuggets you hear them tell of. But I’ve built up my herd with purebred stock from Will Broome’s flocks-he’s the biggest breeder in these parts-and one of these days, ma’am, maybe I’ll have a success story to tell. Or my grandchildren will.”
Johnny had not been in any mood to reveal his relationship to William Broome, and Kitty, asked her name by the farmer’s wife, had-whether inadvertently or intentionally-replied that it was Cadogan.
Johnny scowled as, entering the livery stables, she forestalled with a shake of the head the request he was about to make for the hire of a horse and buggy.
“No, no, Johnny, please! Ask for saddle horses and a pack animal. The roads are rough, aren’t they? We will make better time if we ride.
I can’t rest until we catch up with Pat.”
Then, sensing his disapproval, she added in a more placatory tone, “Those posters and the amount of the reward-truly, we
must
lose no time!”
And they did not. It was two o’clock in the afternoon when they left Bendigo, and Kitty set a punishing, pace. She was a superb horsewoman, and Johnny was forced to concede that, even on the hired hack, his wife looked more beautiful than any woman he had ever known. Indeed, under her light and skillful hands, the jaded animal she bestrode carried its head high and moved proudly.
A brief but heavy rainstorm and the coming of dusk compelled her to agree to halt for the night at a roadside inn. But, as the embarrassed landlord explained, the establishment was set up for the convenience of men on their way to the northern goldfields, and it offered little in the way of comfort-certainly nothing that could be considered suitable accommodation for a lady. But his wife gave up her bed, in a recess off the kitchen, and also contrived to produce a most appetizing meal; and Johnny, bedding down in the big, empty men’s dormitory, had no complaint concerning the hospitality they were offered.
Breakfast, too, was sustaining and plentiful, with tender lamb chops added to the normal fare of eggs and smoke-cured ham. But Kitty’s appetite and her enjoyment of the ample meal were abruptly curtailed by the arrival of a small party of police troopers, whose sergeant announced, in loudly blustering tones, that they were on the track of bushrangers.
“Could be the Lawless lot,” he told the landlord, as he and his men gathered round the bar counter, quaffing ale while they waited for their breakfast to be cooked.
“Went to ground for a while, they did, but we’ve had word that they’re likely to be on the move again, now the weather’s improving. And there’s a mighty fine reward offered for their capture-leastways for the Port Arthur absconder they call Michael Wexford. A hundred and fifty quid, dead or alive! I could do with a hundred and fifty quid, and no mistake.”
He glanced idly over to where Kitty and Johnny were seated, and, the color draining from her cheeks, Kitty clutched at Johnny’s arm and begged him, in a choked voice, to settle their bill so they could leave. Misunderstanding her sudden alarm, the sergeant came over to their table, smiling andwiththe evident intention of offering reassurance.
“Don’t you worry, ma’am,” he said
pleasantly. “We’ll catch the rogues before they’re much older. Have you far to go?”
Johnny answered him. “We’re on our way to Bundilly, Sergeant.” He spoke quietly, feeling Kitty’s fingers biting into his William Stuart Long
arm and praying that she would remain silent. “It’s not above fifteen or twenty miles from here, is it?”
“Mr. Broome’s station? Nearer twenty, sir. But you should make it before dark. The road’s good, apart from a few places where the creeks have overflowed. But if your lady is nervous, why, we’ll ride along with you as far as the Stanhope turnoff. Just give my lads time to break their fast, and we’ll ride out together.”
Kitty’s small hand was trembling violently, and Johnny placed his own over it, holding it tightly.
“No need for you to trouble, Sergeant,” he said, with well-simulated nonchalance. “These fellows you are after are bank robbers, aren’t they-the ones who held up a gold shipment not long ago? I read about them in the papers. I shouldn’t think my wife and I would offer inducement enough to a gang of their caliber. But it’s good of you to offer. Stay and take your time-the food here is worth waiting for.”
“dis’If you say so, sir,” the sergeant agreed readily enough, and returned to join his men at the bar.
Tucking Kitty’s arm under his, Johnny led her outside. “Wait here,” he bade her. “I’ll pay our score and get the horses. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
Kitty did not speak until they were on the road again, and then she said, with a flash of anger, “They talk of hunting Michael as if he were an animal! And for the reward! That’s all they think of, the reward. I wish Dominic had never published that stupid advertisement. He started the hunt. But we
should have announced that Michael was granted a royal pardon. He might have seen it and not-not gone off and held up gold shipments and robbed banks!”
But it would have been too late, even if they had, Johnny thought. An escaped convict on the run had little choice save to take to the bush, just as Michael had. And in these parts neither he nor the police troopers would often see any but a local newspaper.
They had discussed, long ago and many times, how-if they finally found Michael-they would smuggle him out of the country and back to Ireland. He would use Patrick’s name, Kitty had said, if that were necessary, and a passage to Ireland
or London would be booked for him in that name. In their company, hers and Pat’s, dressed and behaving as a gentleman, Michael would be above any suspicion. They had both been so sure of that, and … Johnny vented his disquiet in a long-drawn sigh. The plan might well have succeeded, if they could have found him in Hobart, or even if they had found him before he had taken to the bush.
But he
had
taken to the bush, and as Kitty had said so bitterly, they were hunting him now like an animal.
As if she had read his thoughts, Kitty declared defiantly, “Johnny, it’s
not
too late, even now, if we can only find Michael, talk to him, tell him how we have planned his escape. The police are searching for a bushranger, a gang of bushrangers-that was what the sergeant said, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Johnny confirmed, tightlipped. “He did say that.” He hesitated, reluctant to dash her hopes. “And they have Michael’s description, Kit. His size, his height, even the color of his hair-it’s all on those wanted posters. And there was that trooper who claimed to recognize him, the fellow who was an overseer on Norfolk Island in Price’s time.”
“But if Michael was with us-with Pat and me, going by his real name-he would be safe,
Johnny. No one would recognize him, not even that prison guard, however closely he might resemble an escaped convict known as Michael Wexford.”
Kitty spoke with conviction. “They would not dare!”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Because no one would connect the Earl of Kilclare with a common criminal,” Kitty asserted. “And that’s who he is, Johnny. I never told you before-Pat said we should keep it to ourselves. But Papa died over two years ago, and Michael’s the elder son. He probably won’t know of Papa’s death or that he inherited the title, but he did, and there are documents to prove it. Johnny, I do truly believe that we can save him, even now, if we can find him before the police do.”
There was, Johnny conceded, a chance-a slim chance, perhaps-that they might succeed with the deception Kitty had envisaged. Certainly it would be better than using Pat’s name. In Australia there was respect for the aristocracy; colonial society was impressed by titles, and Kitty was right-the onetime William Stuart Long
Norfolk Island overseer might well be ridiculed if he attempted to claim that the Earl of Kilclare was in reality an escaped convict. The records of his trial were in Ireland. It would take a long time for any sort of check to be made, and if they could spirit Michael out of the state of Victoria to Sydney, where no one knew or had previously set eyes on him, then … He met Kitty’s gaze.
There
was
a chance. They could go overland to New South Wales.
Cobb coaches ran to Beechworth and from there on to Albury, carrying mail, three days a week, and who would look for a fugitive traveling openly by a scheduled coach service, if he were respectably dressed and accompanied by members of his family and figured on the passenger list as Lord Kilclare?
And-Johnny frowned, trying to remember the coach routes displayed at the booking office in Melbourne. There was a service direct from Bendigo to Echuca and Deniliquin and Hay and, if his memory was not at fault, from there to Bathurst.
Certainly there was a road … better still, surely Cobb and Company carried mail from Albury to Yass and Goulburn?
Fired as he was with Kitty’s optimism, his frown lifted. “Perhaps,” he told her, “perhaps Pat has found Michael by this time, Kit. He’s had three weeks” start on us. That woman in Urquhart Falls might have been able to tell him where Michael was heading.”
But when they reached Bundilly and thankfully drew rein outside the homestead, it was to find all their hopes unexpectedly dashed. William Broome and his wife, Dorothea, greeted them warmly but with the news that Patrick was still there.
“The poor young man went down with pneumonia,”
William said. “Indeed, he only just managed to get here before collapsing. But don’t worry, Lady Kitty, he’s on the mend now. It was touch and go for a while, but my wife is an expert nurse, and we called a doctor from Urquhart Falls, who worked wonders. Your brother is still very weak, and we’re keeping him in his bed, but he’ll be overjoyed to see you, I know. He’s talked of nothing but your coming since he regained his senses.
Dorothea will take you to him now, while John and I have a drink together.”
Over the welcome drink, William became expansive.
“It’s not often I have a visit from a nephew I’ve never seen. It’s good to meet you, John, and I shall have a host of questions to ask about the rest of the family in due course. In the meantime, though, I should perhaps tell you that the man you are seeking, Michael Wexford, as I believe he is known, spent a night here-what? Nine weeks ago. He came with a young fellow I think you’ll remember-Luke Murphy. Luke iswas
Rick Tempest’s son-in-law.”
“Yes, of course, I remember Luke, sir,”
Johnny exclaimed. “He married little Elizabeth Tempest and lost her tragically in childbirth. Her parents were heartbroken and Luke even more so. He shipped out of Sydney in one of Claus Van Buren’s trading vessels.”