Manasseh asked the Judge to excuse him for a moment while he conferred with his juniors and Blake. After a short but excited conference he rose again and—but first we must hear what had happened outside.
While all concerned were in Court listening to Manasseh, Considine had been smuggled into the witnesses’ room and, being bored and worried, had strayed into the verandah of the Court buildings. He had been hauled into consultations with barristers, and examined and badgered and worried to death. The hard Sydney pavements had made his feet sore. The city ways were not his ways, and the mere mental effort of catching trains and omnibuses, and keeping appointments, and having fixed meal-times, was inexpressibly wearing to a man who had never been tied to time in his life.
And what a dismal prospect he had before him! To go over to England and take up a position for which he was wholly unfitted, without a friend who would understand his ideas, and in whom he could confide. Then his thoughts turned to Peggy—Peggy, square-built, determined, masterful, capable; just the very person to grapple with difficulties; a woman whose nerve a regiment of duchesses would fail to shake. He thought of her many abilities, and admitted to himself that after all was said and done, if he had only been able to gratify her wishes (and they did not seem so extravagant now) she would have been a perfect helpmate for him. His mind went back to the weird honeymoon at Pike’s pub., to the little earthen-floored dining-room, with walls of sacking and a slab table, over which Peggy presided with such force of character. He thought of the two bushmen whom Peggy had nursed through the fever with rough tenderness; and then, turning suddenly, he found Peggy standing at his elbow.
For a second neither spoke. Then Considine said, with an air of forced jauntiness, “Well, Peggy, you won’t be comin’ to England with me, then?”
“I heard you was goin’ to settle at Kiley’s Crossin’, lending money to the cockatoos.”
Peggy looked at him with a meaning glance.
“Ye should know me better nor that, Paddy,” she said.
This cleared the way tremendously. The gaunt bushman hitched himself a little nearer, and spoke in an insinuating way. “I’m pretty tired of this case meself, I dunno how you feel about it.”