Sheilah McLeod: A Heroine of the Back Blocks

'My name is Heggarstone,' I said, 'and our house is on the hill over there. You can just see the roof.'

If I had been surprised at his inquiry, it was plain that he was ever so much more astonished when he heard my name. For upwards of half a minute he stood and stared at me as if he did not know what to make of it.

'In that case, if you will permit me,' he said, with curious politeness, 'I will accompany you on your homeward journey. I have come a very long way to see your father, and my business with him is of the utmost importance.'

My first shyness having by this time completely vanished, I gazed at him with undisguised interest. I had not met many travellers in my life, and for this reason when I did I was prepared to make the most of them.

'Have you come from Brisbane, sir?' I inquired, after a short silence, feeling that it was incumbent upon me to say something.

'Just lately,' he answered. 'But before that from London.'

After this magnificent admission, I felt there was nothing more to be said. A man who had come from London to our little township, for the sole purpose of seeing my father, was not the sort of person to be talked to familiarly. I accordingly trudged alongside him in silence, thinking of all the wonderful things he must have seen, and wondering if it would be possible for me at some future date to induce him to tell me about them. At first he must have inclined to the belief that I was rather a forward youth. Now, however, I was as silent as if I were struck dumb. We descended the path to the river without a word, crossed the ford with our tongues still tied, and had almost reached our own boundary fence before either of us spoke. Then my companion moved his bag to the other hand and, placing his right upon my shoulder, said slowly, —

'So you are – well, Marmaduke Heggarstone's son?'

I looked up at him and noticed the gravity of his face as I answered, 'Yes, sir!'

He appeared to ruminate for a few seconds, and my sharp ears caught the words, 'Dear me, dear me!' muttered below his breath. A few moments later we had reached the house, and after I had asked the new-comer to take a seat in the verandah, I went in to find my father and to tell him that a visitor had arrived to see him.

'Who is it?' he inquired, looking up from his book. 'How often am I to tell you to ask people's names before you tell them I am at home? Go back and find out.'

I returned to the verandah, and asked the stranger if he would be kind enough to tell me his name.

'Redgarth,' he said, 'Michael Redgarth. Tell your father that, and I think he will remember me.'

I returned to the dining-room and acquainted my father with what I had discovered. Prepared as I was for it to have some effect upon him, I had no idea the shock would be so great. My father sprang to his feet with what sounded almost like a cry of alarm.

'Redgarth here,' he said; 'what on earth can it mean? However, I'll soon find out.'

So saying he pushed me on one side and went quickly down the passage in the direction of the verandah. My curiosity by this time was thoroughly excited, and I followed him at a respectful distance, frightened lest he should see me and order me back, but resolved that, happen what might, I would discover his mysterious errand.

I saw my father pass through the door out on to the verandah, and as he did so I heard the stranger rise from his chair. What he said by way of introduction I could not catch, but whatever it may have been there could be no doubt that it incensed my father beyond all measure.

'Call me that at your peril,' I heard him say. 'Now tell me your errand here as quickly as you can and be gone again.'

As I stood, listening, in the shadow of the doorway, I could not help thinking that this was rather scurvy treatment on my father's part of one who had come so many thousand miles to see him. However, Mr Redgarth did not seem as much put out by it as I expected he would be.

'I have come to tell you, my – ' he began, and then checked himself, 'well, since you wish it, I will call you Mr Heggarstone, that your father is dead.'

'You might have spared yourself the trouble,' my father replied, with a bitter little laugh. 'I knew it a week ago. If that is all you have to tell me I'm sorry you put yourself to so much inconvenience. I suppose my brother sent you?'

'Exactly,' Redgarth replied dryly, 'and a nice business it has been. I traced you to Sydney, and then on to Brisbane. There I had some difficulty in obtaining your address, but as soon as I did so I took the coach and came out here.'

'Well, and now that you have found me what do you want with me?'

'In the first place I am entitled by your brother to say that provided you – '

Here my father must have made some sign to him to stop.

'Pardon my interrupting you,' he said, 'but before we proceed any further let me tell you once and for all that I will have none of my brother's provisoes. Whatever threats, stipulations, or offers he may have empowered you to make, I will have nothing whatsoever to do with them. I washed my hands of my family, as you know, many years ago, and if you had not come now to remind me of the unpleasant fact, I should have allowed myself to forget even that they existed. You know my opinion of my brother. I have had time to think it over, and I see no reason at all for changing it. When we were both younger he ruined my career for me, perjured himself to steal my good name, and as if that were not enough induced my father to back him up in his treatment of me. Go back to them and tell them that I still hate and despise them. Of the name they cannot deprive me, that is one consolation; of the money I will not touch a sixpence. They may have it, every halfpenny, and I wish them joy of it.'

'But have you thought of your son, the little fellow I saw in the township, and who conducted me hither?'

'I have thought of him,' replied my father, sternly, 'and it makes no difference to my decision. I desire him to be brought up in ignorance of his birth. I am convinced that it would be the kinder course. Now I'll wish you a very good evening. If you have any papers with you that you are desirous I should sign, you may send them over to me and I will peruse them with as little delay as possible. I need not warn you to be careful of what you say in the township yonder. They know, and have always known me, as Marmaduke Heggarstone here, and I have no desire that they should become aware of my real name.'

'You need not fear. I shall not tell them,' said Redgarth. 'As for the papers, I have them in this bag. I will leave them with you. You can send them across to me when you have done with them. I suppose it is no use my attempting to make you see the matter in any other light?'

'None whatever.'

'In that case, I have the honour to wish your lor – I mean to wish you, Mr Heggarstone, a very good evening.'

As he spoke I heard him buckle the straps of his portmanteau, and then I slipped noiselessly down the passage towards the kitchen. A moment later his step sounded upon the gravel and he was gone.

On the Thursday following he left the township, and we saw no more of him. Whatever his errand may have been, never once during his lifetime did my father say anything to me upon the subject, nor did I ever venture to question him about it. Perhaps, as he said, there is something behind it all that I am happier in not knowing. So far as I have ever heard such skeletons are generally best left in undisturbed possession of their cupboards.

After that we resumed the same sort of life as had been our portion before his arrival.

This monotonous existence continued undisturbed until the time of the great flood, which, as I have said before, is even remembered to this day. It occurred at the end of a wet season, and after a fortnight's pouring rain, which continued day and night. Never was such rain known, and for this reason the ground soon became so thoroughly saturated that it could absorb no more. In consequence the creeks filled, and all the billabongs became deep as lakes.

In order to realise what follows you must understand that above the township, perhaps a couple of miles or so, three creeks joined forces, and by so doing formed the Cargoo River, on the banks of which our township was located. There had been heavy rain on all these creeks, and in consequence they came down bankers, united, as I have just said, and then, being penned in by the hills and backed up by the stored water in the billabongs, swept down the valley towards the township in one great flood, which carried everything before it. Never shall I forget that night. The clouds had cleared off the sky earlier in the evening, and it was as bright as day, the moon being almost at the full. I was having my supper with old Betty in the kitchen when suddenly I heard an odd sort of rumbling in the distance. I stopped eating to listen. Even to my childish ears the sound was peculiar, and as it still continued, I asked Betty, who was my oracle in everything, what she thought it meant. She was a little deaf, and suggested the wind in the trees. But I knew that this was no wind in trees. Every moment it was growing louder, and when I left the kitchen and went through the house to the front verandah, where I found my father standing looking up the valley, it had grown into a well-defined roar. I questioned him on the subject.

'It is a flood,' he answered, half to himself. 'Nothing but water, and an enormous body of it, could make that sound.'

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a man on horseback appeared round the bend of the hill and galloped up the path. His horse was white with foam, and as he drew up before the steps he shouted wildly, —

'The flood is coming down the valley. Fly for your lives.'

My father only laughed – a little scornfully, I thought – and said, in his odd, mocking voice, —

'No flood will touch us here, my friend, but if you are anxious to do humanity a service, you had better hasten on and warn the folk in the township below us. They are in real danger!'

Long before he had finished speaking, the man had turned his horse and was galloping down the track, as fast as he had come, towards the little cluster of houses we could discern in the hollow below us. That young man was Dennis O'Rourke, the eldest son of a Selector further up the valley, and the poor fellow was found, ten days later, dead, entangled in the branches of a gum tree, twenty miles below Barranda Township, with a stirrup iron bent round his left foot, and scarcely half a mile from his own selection gate. Without doubt he had been overtaken by the flood before he could reach his wife to give her the alarm. In consequence, the water caught her unprepared, she was never seen again, and only one of her children escaped alive; their homestead, which stood on the banks of the creek, was washed clean off the face of the earth, and when I rode down that way on my pony, after the flood had subsided, it would have been impossible to distinguish the place where it had once stood.

But to return to my narrative. O'Rourke had not left us five minutes before the rumbling had increased to a roar, almost like that of thunder. And every second it was growing louder. Then, with a suddenness no man could imagine who has never seen such a thing, a solid wall of water, shining like silver in the moonlight, came into view, seemed to pause for a moment, and then swept trees, houses, cattle, haystacks, fences, and even large boulders before it like so much driftwood. Within a minute of making its appearance it had spread out across the valley, and, most marvellous part of all, had risen half way up the hill, and was throwing a line of yeast-like foam upon our garden path. A few seconds later we distinctly heard it catch the devoted township, and the crashing and rending sound it made was awful to hear. Then the noise ceased, and only a swollen sheet of angry water, stretching away across the valley for nearly a mile and a half was to be seen. Such a flood no man in the district, and I state this authoritatively, had ever in his life experienced before. Certainly I have not seen one like it since. And the brilliant moonlight only intensified the terrible effect.

Having assured himself that we had nothing to fear, my father ordered me off to bed, and reluctantly I went – only to lie curled up in my warm blankets thinking of the waters outside, and repicturing the effect produced upon my mind by O'Rourke's sensational arrival. It was the first time I had ever seen a man under the influence of a life-and-death excitement, and, imaginative child as I was, the effect it produced on my mind was not one to be easily shaken off. Then I must have fallen asleep, for I have no recollection of anything else till I was awakened in the middle of the night by the noise of people entering my room. Half-asleep and half-awake I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and blinking at the brightness of the candle my father carried in his hand. Old Betty was with him, and behind them, carrying a bundle in his arms, stalked a tall, thin man with a grey beard, long hair and a white, solemn face. His clothes, I noticed, were sopping wet, and a stream of water marked his progress across the floor.

'Take James out and put the child in his place,' said my father, coming towards my bed. The man advanced, and Betty lifted me out and placed me on a chair. The bundle was then tucked up where I had been, and, when that had been done, Betty turned to me.

'Jim,' she said, 'you must be a good boy and give no trouble, and I'll make you up a nice bed in the corner.' This was accordingly done, and when it was ready I was put into it, and in five minutes had forgotten the interruption and was fast asleep once more.

As usual, directly there was light in the sky, I woke and looked about me. To my surprise, however, for I had for the moment forgotten the strange waking of the night, I found myself, not in my own place, but on a pile of rugs in the corner. Wondering what this might mean, I looked across at my bed, half-expecting to find it gone. But no! There it stood, sure enough, with an occupant I could not remember ever to have seen before – a little rose-leaf of a girl, at most not more than four years old. Like myself she was sitting up, staring with her great blue eyes, and laughing from under a tangled wealth of golden curls at my astonishment. Her little pink and white face, so charmingly dimpled, seemed prettier than anything I had ever seen or dreamed of before; but I did not know what to make of it all, and, boy-like, was inordinately shy. Seeing this, and not being accustomed to be slighted, the little minx climbed out of bed, and, with her tiny feet peeping from beneath one of my flannel night-shirts, came running across to where I lay. Then standing before me, her hands behind her back, she said in a baby voice – that I can hear now even after twenty years, —

'I'se Sheilah!'

And that was my introduction to the good angel of my life. Five minutes later we were playing together on the floor as if we had been friends for years instead of minutes. And when Betty came into the room, according to custom, to carry me off to my bath, her first remark was one which has haunted me all my life, and will go on doing so until I die.

'Pretty dears,' she cried, 'sure they're just made for each other.'