In a week or so they would be magnificent—so pleasant to the eye after the winter scene, and even in summer there were few blossoms except those of the flowering gums.
I was glad to be here and alive; I had learned to enjoy again the solitude of my rides. During them I could think of the two men who were rarely out of my thoughts. I did not understand my feelings entirely. I loved Stirling, but I was not sure whether I was in love with him. My feelings for Lynx were dimcun to oenne. I admired him; I was to some extent in awe of him. t enjoyed as much as anything else in the world to cross swords with him; I loved to see his eyes flash with appreciation when I said something which amused him.
I said aloud: “I’m happy.”
And I was. What had gone before did not matter. The future lay bright before me; I only had to move towards it-and it contained both Stirling and Lynx.
I was in a strange mood that morning. I had always avoided the spot where my father had been killed; but I had a sudden desire to go there. I was not going to brood on the past; I would ignore the shadows it cast. I would accept the fact that life was different here, it was cheaper and death could come suddenly, more suddenly than at home. Men lost their way in the bush and died, or they were shot for disobeying the moral code laid down by the people. This was the nature of things and one did not brood.
My father had died. I had lost the one I had loved beyond all others . then. But now my life had changed and there was another . others, perhaps I should say. I had a father to replace the one I had lost; he was entirely different and I was not sure of my feelings for him, but that he was important to me there was no doubt. And there was Stirling—my dearest Stirling—named after one of the rivers of this country, a tribute to Australia from one of its unwilling sons because here he had found a way of life which was tolerable for a man of his spirit. I did not believe he could live in quite the same way in England. I remembered an occasion when I had mentioned this to him and he had replied: “Some men can, Nora. It depends. A man can rule his village if he is its squire. He lives in a big house; he controls the lives of all those around him; that is how it was with Sir Henry Dorian.”
I had replied that it was a sad thing when people could not be content with their lot. They might have a great deal but they hankered after what they fancied they had missed. Did he think he could have more power, or whatever it was he craved, in his English village than here in his Lynx Empire?
He had laughed at me; he knew what he wanted; he had fashioned a dream, I told him, and if he ever realized it it might well be that the reality was different from the dream.
How we talked and how reluctant I always was to leave him!
I had come to the clearing—that spot where my father had been shot. The sheer beauty of it was breathtaking. It looked different from when I had last seen it; the multi-coloured wild flowers had transformed it; the ghost gums rose high, majestic and imperious, indifferent to what happened so far below them. Here was the path along which the dray would have come. The bush rangers would have been hiding in the grove of wattles. I must not think of it, or if I did I must remember that it was in the past, and mourning could do no good, and that because it had happened I had a new father. And I had Stirling to love and cherish me—perhaps for ever.
I was thirsty and wondered whether the water in the creek was drinkable. I dismounted, tied up Queen Anne and walked over to the creek. The water was silvery in the sunlight as it trickled down from the high plateau. There were deep gullies on the side of the hills; here and there I saw the granite rock, the slate and what looked like quartz.
I cupped my hands and caught the water as it tumbled down the side of the plateau. It was not drinkable, I decided; it was muddy and as it trickled through my fingers it left a sediment.
I stared. I could not believe it. The sediment was like yellow dust.
I had begun to tremble. I looked up at the plateau. I stared at the trickling water. I held out my hands again and caught it as it fell.
There was the same yellow sediment.
Could it be? I had heard such talk of it. Was this possible? Gold!
Could it fall into one’s hands when one was not searching for it?
I looked up again at’ the plateau. The sides were steep; the water trickling over could be conveying the message.
“There is gold up here.” But if that was so, why had no one discovered it? The answer to that was: Because someone has to for the first time. I remembered stories of how shepherds minding their sheep had come across gold in the fields, and a humble shepherd had become a rich man. It had happened more than once.
I stood uncertainly. Then I heard the kookaburras laughing.
It was ironical, if this should be true, that I who hated gold should be the one to find it.
But wait, I cautioned myself. Had I found it? Had I become touched by that madness which gold seemed to bring? j I was trembling with excitement. Perhaps it was not gold at’s all. What did I know of it?
It was just some sort of dust which had been coloured by the rocks above me.
I thought of my father’s pursuing the back-aching work of cradling and panning for months, the hardships he must have suffered before throwing in his lot with Lynx. I pictured his searching wildly for the precious metal. Could it be possible that I, without thinking, had meant to drink from a stream and had found instead of water, gold!
Then I was certain, for on the bank of the creek lay a small shining piece of metal about the size of a nutmeg. I bent down and picked it up. It was yellow gold.
I don’t know how long I stood looking at the nugget. The impulse came to me to throw it away, to ride back and say nothing of what I had found. Something told me that if I took it back it would lead to disaster. I imagined the excitement there would be in the house.
Surely if I had discovered it so easily there must be a great deal very near at hand. It had killed my father; it had done something to Lynx. I thought of the Lambs who had gone in search of it, and poor Jemmy. I thought of men dying of phthisis. All for gold.
I looked up at the tall ghost gums as though asking them to decide for me. Their leaves moved slightly in the breeze, aloof, indifferent to the fortunes of men. They had stood there perhaps for hundreds of years. They would have seen the convicts come, the gold rush start and the days before it had all happened when the country was peopled only by the dark men.
There was no answer up there.
Could I find gold and not tell? How could I face Lynx in the library and keep the secret?
I put the nugget into my pocket and rode back to Little Whiteladies.
I went straight to the library. Lynx was there alone. He stood up when he saw me.
“Nora,” he cried.
“What’s happened?”
I did not speak. I merely drew the nugget from my pocket and held it out to him in the palm of my hand.
He took it gingerly; he stared at it; I saw the quick colour flame into his face. His eyes were like blue flames. He was on fire with excitement.
“By God,” he exclaimed.
“Where did you get this?”
“At the creek where my father was shot. I held out my hands to get a drink of water from the stream coming from the plateau. It left a deposit in my hands, a yellow dust. I wasn’t sure what it was. Then I scooped and found this. “
“You found it! Lying there on the bank of the creek!” He stared at the nugget which he had taken from my hand.
“It’ll weigh all of twelve ounces. And you found this dust and this .. Then it’s there somewhere. It’s there in quantities….” He laughed.
“And Nora found it. My girl, Nora!” He drew me to him and gave me a hug which was almost suffocating. I thought though: He is embracing gold, not me.