Father Ryan Acts
FATHER RYAN had eaten his dinner at the policeman’s table as usual, and was seated at his desk gazing over it and beyond the open window towards the hotel with meditative eyes. The sun was on the verge of setting, and but two sounds drifted in upon him from the silenced world-the voices of several children at play in the street, and the occasional reiterated phrase, “How dry we are!” screamed by the cockatoo in his cage on the store veranda.
But of these sounds Father Ryan was unconscious. He was thinking of the only guest staying at the hotel, and wondering what on earth kept her in Mount Lion. He was a little afraid of Mrs Thomas, but felt no dislike for her. She shocked him, certainly. Her outspokenness had at times really pained him. On the other hand, save for her indulgence in liquor, her behaviour was above reproach. Had Mrs Thomas been a man, her drinking would have aroused no comment, though her generosity in “shouting” would have done. Her ability to consume liquor was a never-failing marvel to Mr Bumpus, who was even more afraid of her than was Father Ryan. In fact, she was the topic of conversation among the whole population of Mount Lion. She was at once the giver and the withholder; she gave her money in “shouts”, and she withheld at all times any information about herself.
Father Ryan, however, knew a little more about her than did the other inhabitants of the bush town. To him had Mrs Thomas come asking questions, many questions, questions that sought to find out if within recent time anyone had risen to affluence even for a short period. In his capacity as a Roman Catholic priest she had confided that she was the sister of the missing man, Marks. That was about all she did confide. Father Ryan knew nothing about the case of the Stolen Bride, and was but told the relationship between her and Marks to secure his sympathy and aid in her search for the truth. For the official statement concerning the disappearance of Marks she did not believe, knowing that her brother was a bush-man born and bred.
The grounds of her belief in foul play had been communicated to him with a downright clarity that had brought Father Ryan to believe, with her, that Marks had not died simply from exposure. It was the apparent fact that in his district there was a man who had killed and robbed which so disturbed the little priest. He had been so sure he knew the hearts and minds of all the people who were his friends that he was like the husband who was told that his wife was unfaithful.
Into the calm water of his life, so seldom disturbed by human passion, had dropped a stone that had agitated it for some considerable time. That evening the agitation was subsiding, for Father Ryan was making himself believe that Mrs Thomas was suffering from hallucinations; and, just when he was congratulating himself on having arrived at this decision, another and heavier stone was dropped by Mrs Morris, who came bursting into his study.
“There’s been trouble out at Windee, yer reverence,” she exclaimed, dropping himan habitual curtsy. “Oh, such trouble! Morris has been out to arrest Dot and Dash, and they’ve escaped, and the place is on fire, andit’s Christmas Day to-morrow and-”
A large blue neckerchief smothered her wheezy voice whilst being used to wipe the perspiration from her broad face. Her body, almost as big in width as in length, appeared to sway on the small feet.
“One item at a time, Mrs Morris!”
The priest’s deep and musical voice seemed to reach her as a cooling wind. She felt his hand on her forearm, felt herself urged backward and into a wide-armed chair.
“Now, then. Tell me your news-slowly-and in sequence,” he said gently. “From the beginning, please.”
“Morris has just rung me up,” gasped the woman, still all of a flutter. “He and Mr Rowland left for Windee this afternoon, but he never told me what job he was on, which isn’t like him. He says they are after Dot and Dash, and when Iast him what for, he said: ‘N-i-x!’ You know what he is when he says: ‘N-i-x!’ don’t you, Father? Itain’t no use arguing. Says Dot and Dash was warned he wanted them and they escaped. Then at the same time old Jeff gets word that all the back of Windee is afire, and about thirty thousand sheep in danger of being burnt up. He’s coming home, is Morris to get Slater’s car, and chase Dot and Dash. Oh, what could they have done? That snip of a Dot! No one can help liking him. An’ poor Mr Dash! A proper gentleman in every way-”
Father Ryan let her run on. No longer was he following her. His mind was flashing back and forth between Dot and Dash and Mrs Thomas. Mrs Morris continued to drone on, but upon the tablets of the priest’s mind had at last become written in letters of flame: “Dot and Dash? Dotor Dash?”
Was it one of these two, or was it together that they were responsible for the disappearance of Marks? Was Mrs Thomas’s seemingly unfounded suspicion really substantial? Dash-Hugh Trench-Marion Stanton. Marion-Marion, who had waited two years! Marion, whom he had regarded with such sincere affection ever since she was little!
Mrs Morris was still voicing complaint and speculation when the fact of the fire wriggled into the ambit of his mind. The back of Windee alight-thirty thousand sheep in danger-all hands rushed to the scene-thirty thousand sheep-thirty thousand! Old Jeff gone out there too. Even Roberts would go. Marion and Mrs Poulton, likely enough, left behind. And Marion-Marion thinking of Dash, wondering, wondering, wondering! Alone and wondering. And Dash fleeing with Dot-the law on their heels. The law-and Marion!
Out of the mental welter stood the name Marion-the little girl whom he loved, and who loved and confided in him; the woman he loved, and who still confided to him all her secrets, little and big. She wouldbe wanting him at that moment. He must go, at once.
Without speaking, he snatched up a light coat, but failed to remember choosing a hat, and left the now breathless Mrs Morris to follow him to the gate, there to stand and watch him cross the road to the hotel. She saw him make straight to the public bar door and disappear within.
Mr Bumpus’s main bar was a spacious room, which was not too large in thefar-gone prosperous days, but now always seemed uncomfortably big. Within, Father Ryan found four men playing two-up-everyone knew the police were not in town-and Mrs Thomas seated on a barrel at the farther end of the bar drinking from a glass mug reputed to hold an imperial pint. Mr Bumpus was drawing drinks for the two-up players, and the entrance of the little priest made him pause in the act of pumping beer, and the gamblers freeze into statues of almost ludicrous guilt.
On the round, cherubic face of the priest was no evidence of the perturbation of his mind. Having caught the men red-handed, he seized the slight additional power the situation afforded him. Softly he said:
“Ah! Two-up! An illegal game. Played on public premises, too. Your premises, Bumpus! Very serious. Bumpus, call your wife!”
“Tell her she’s wanted by the Church,” put in Mrs Thomas.
“Wotd’you want her for?”
“Call your wife, Bumpus!”
“The Church demands your wife, Bumpus. Render unto me beer and plenty of it, and unto the Church your wife,” Mrs Thomas said very loudly, but distinctly.
One of the gamblers, raw-boned, unshaved, one who appeared in visage and dress as if he had stepped off the deck of a pirate ship in the “Jolly Roger” days, sauntered along to the woman, whom he addressed in a slow, drawling voice and regarded with a facial expression so truly terrific that even Mrs Thomas was awed.
“Yousain’tmeanin’ no offence to Father Ryan, areyous, mum?”
Mrs Thomas, fortunately, held her peace.
“I’m kinder gladuv that,” proclaimed the man, known to every policeman in West New South Wales as “Stormbird”. The fingers of one huge sun-blackened hand fondled his throat significantly, and dimly Mrs Thomas realized that chivalrous regard for her sex was a weakness unknown to Stormbird. Before Father Ryan could intervene, Mrs Bumpus entered the bar.
“Good evening, everybody!” she exclaimed with a giggle. “Hallo, Father Ryan; good evening!”
“Good evening!” replied the little priest, smiling broadly. “I asked for you because I want you to take charge of the bar while Bumpus drives these four boys and me out to Windee in his car. See that you have enough petrol, Bumpus, before we start.”
“Wot’sthe stunt, Pardray?” demanded Bumpus.
“Just a little commission for you, Bumpus. Hurry up! Now, you boys, onedrink apiece before we start. There is work and plenty of it waiting us at Windee.”
“Tell us theidee, Father,” the Stormbird pleaded, obviously careful of his speech.
Father Ryan paid Mrs Bumpus and lighted a cigar of the kind which her husband always boasted was the best Havana procurable.
“I understand the back of Windee is afire. I’m after thinking every man of us will be needed. I intend going along to do what I can, and I know quite well that you all would consider yourselves insulted if I went without you when men are wanted.”
“My…! Yes, Pardray, uv course,” drawled the Stormbird.“Uvcourse!”
“Naterally,” interjected a second man.
“Don’t you men be such fools as to go away from here this time ofnight! Have a drink on me!” shrilled Mrs Thomas, slipping off her barrel and coming towards the group via the bar counter, needed as a stay. She brought up against the Stormbird, who, stooping, leered down on her.
“Yousain’tmeanin’ no offence, areyous?” he asked softly.
Mrs Thomas sat on the floor and began to weep.
From out of the evening twilight beyond the door Mr Bumpus’s motor-hootertold them he was waiting.