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I love the rush and roar of the train, and wished on this occasion that it might go on and on for over, never giving me time to think or stop. But, alas, at 1.20 we pulled up at Yarnung, where a man came inquiring for a young lady named Melvyn. My fellow passengers collected my belongings, and I got out. "Good-bye, gentlemen; thank you very much for your kindness."
We first went to the post office, where the mail-bags were delivered, and then returned and pulled rein in front of the Woolpack Hotel. A tall young gentleman in a mackintosh and cap, who had been standing on the veranda, stepped out on the street as the coach stopped, and lifting his cap and thrusting his head into the coach, inquired, "Which is Miss Melvyn?"
He was a pleasant-looking young fellow somewhere about twenty, whose face was quite familiar to me. He smiled so good-humouredly at me that I widely did the same in return, and he came forward with extended hand, exclaiming, "At last!" The others looked on in surprise, Harold remarking suspiciously, "You said you were unacquainted with Miss Melvyn, but an introduction does not seem necessary."
He need not necessarily be downright unscrupulous, but if he wishes to profit he must not be overburdened with niceties in the point of honour. That is where Richard Melvyn fell through. He was crippled with too many Utopian ideas of honesty, and was too soft ever to come off anything but second-best in a deal.
Seeing I was the only occupant, he laughed the pleasantest of laughs, disclosing two wide rows of perfect teeth, and turning to the driver, said, Is that your only passenger? I suppose it is Miss Melvyn?" "As I wasn't present at her birth, I can't swear, but I believe her to be that same, as sure as eggs is eggs," he replied.
His guests were ever assuring him he was buried and wasted in Timlinbilly's gullies. A man of his intelligence, coupled with his wonderful experience among stock, would, they averred, make a name and fortune for himself dealing or auctioneering if he only liked to try. Richard Melvyn began to think so too, and desired to try. He did try.
Richard Melvyn resolved to live as those around him start a dairy; run it with his family, who would also rear poultry for sale. As instruments of the dairying trade he procured fifty milch-cows, the calves of which had to be "poddied", and a hand cream-separator. I was in my fifteenth year when we began dairying; the twins Horace and Gertie were, as you already know, eleven months younger.
Your sincere and affec. friend, Sybylla Penelope Melvyn. Then I crept into bed beside my little sister, and though the air inside had not cooled, and the room was warm, I shivered so that I clasped the chubby, golden-haired little sleeper in my arms that I might feel something living and real and warm. "Oh, Rory, Rory!" I whispered, raining upon her lonely-hearted tears.
Dick Melvyn being my father did not blind me to the fact that he was a despicable, selfish, weak creature, and as such I despised him with the relentlessness of fifteen, which makes no allowance for human frailty and weakness. Disgust, not honour, was the feeling which possessed me when I studied the matter. Towards mother I felt differently.
In conjunction with the bishop's name, the approaching sale of our goods had been duly advertised in the local papers, and my father received several letters of sympathy from the clergy deploring the conduct of the bishop. These letters were from men unknown to father, who were unaware that Richard Melvyn was being sold off for a debt already paid.
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