The Gallant by William Stuart Long Read Free Book Online Page A

light kiss on his daughter’s brow, muttered something Luke did not hear and led his wife away, to stand by the window, holding her in his arms.
    Edmund and Dickon came in briefly and left together, Dickon, his bearded face taut with pity, pausing, as he had done earlier, to touch Luke’s shoulder with a big, gentle hand. Silence fell, broken only by Katie Tempest’s stifled sobs, and Luke went on kneeling at the bedside, numb with grief. He held one of Elizabeth’s hands to his lips, pouring out his love for her in a choked voice and praying desperately to the God he had worshiped in the boyhood that now seemed infinitely far away.
    “Save her, Father in Heaven-I beg you to save her! Of your infinite goodness and mercy, let her live. Take my life, not hers -I would gladly die for her! Elizabeth, my dearest, sweetest love, try to speak to me-try to rouse yourself! I love you so… .”
    38

William Stuart Long
    But his frantic pleas elicited no response; Elizabeth’s small, work-roughened hand was limp, her face shuttered and remote, and her eyes remained tightly closed. Luke did not know for how long he knelt there as her life ebbed away, but after a while Dr. Morecombe bade him get to his feet and stand aside, and after a brief examination he said flatly, “She has gone, boy, God rest her soul. You’d better go downstairs.”
    The next two days were a nightmare, during which Luke managed somehow to do what was required of him and keep his emotions under iron control. The funeral of his wife and stillborn child took place at Pengallon, conducted by a curate from Bathurst, who was a stranger to him, and attended by a host of people, most of whom were the Tempests’ friends and also strangers to him. He accepted their expressions of sympathy in a state of frozen acquiescence, locked in his own grief as if it were a cage, and even Elizabeth’s family, try as they might, could not reconcile him to his loss.
    It was as if they, too, had become strangers, and the day following the funeral, Luke made up his mind to leave Pengallon. The place held too many memories; wherever he went, to the paddocks, to the stables, to the shearing shed, or to his own cottage, the memories of Elizabeth came flooding into his mind, haunting him like some small, beloved ghost that was never absent and was yet unreal.
    Rick Tempest, to whom he made known his decision, proved sympathetic and understanding and did not attempt to dissuade him.
    “Take time off by all means, Luke. I realize, indeed we all do, how hard this has hit you. But come back to us, lad, when you feel you can.
    Elizabeth’s inheritance will be yours, and Pengallon is your home-remember that.”
    Luke thanked him, his heart full. “I reckon I’ll go to sea again, sir,” he added.
    “Maybe go back to the States for a while, if I can find a ship bound for “Frisco. But if I can’t-well, just about any ship will do, wherever she’s bound. I’ll ask Claus Van Buren if he can give me a berth in one of his traders.”
    He took his departure soon after talking to Rick. Edmund, when the time came to bid him farewell, urged him to stay. “Or
    at least,” he suggested, wringing Luke’s hand, “don’t make it too long an absence this time. Because I’ve thought about what my father said, and …
    I owe it to him to do as he asked. I’m going to stand for the Assembly in his place, Luke, and do my share of electioneering, if that’s what he wants. So you’ll be needed here, to run the station and help the old man out when I can’t. That gives you a year’s freedom. It should be long enough, shouldn’t it?”
    Would it? Luke wondered dully-would he be able to recover from Elizabeth’s loss in twelve short months? But he did not argue, and with Dickon and the boy, Billy Joe, he rode to Bathurst, gave his horse into their care, and took the Crane and Roberts coach to Sydney. Dickon’s
    woebegone face and the little boy’s tearful waving, as the coach pulled out of