The pool of St Branok

I had glimpsed Ben now and then. He always seemed pleased to see me. He called at the shack one day and asked if Morwenna and I would ride with him. He thought we ought to see something of the countryside. He had seen Gervaise and Justin that morning and they were hard at it. He grinned.

"They can't stop working," he said. "It's always the way when people first come out. They are afraid to lose a minute because that might be the one minute when they find the six-hundred-ounce nugget. I told them I was going to call on you ladies and suggest I take you for a ride round."

I said I should enjoy it and I thought Morwenna would too.

We found Morwenna lying down. She was having one of her bouts of sickness.

"Then it will be just the two of us," said Ben. "Come on. I'll find a horse for you."

He had a sizable stable; he chose a mare which he thought would be suitable for me and saddled her.

"She's yours," he said, "for as long as you are here."

"You are so generous."

"What! To my old friend?"

I smiled at him. "I'm glad you're here, Ben. I think I should be a little uneasy if you weren't."

"No need to think of that. I'm here. And here I stay."

"Till you find your fortune."

"That's right. How's that? Comfortable?"

"Very."

"She's a good old stager, aren't you, Foxey?"

"Foxey! Is that her name?"

"Yes. She's that reddish color and there's a look of a fox about her ... or there was when she was born. She's a nice easygoing old thing."

"You mean she's sober and suitable for a greenhorn?"

"Exactly. You don't want a wild thing when you are new to a country. This isn't like home, you know. It's all shrub for miles and miles. You could lose yourself here and wander round and round in circles. Now Foxey likes her home here in the stables and I wouldn't mind taking a bet that if you were lost, she'd bring you back."

We rode away from the township.

"This is like old times," he said. "Remember how we used to ride together when I came to Cador?"

"Yes. Ben ... do you ever think of ..."

"You mean all that by the pool?"

"Yes," I said. "It haunts me even now."

"It is all over and done with."

"I can't forget what we did, Ben."

"I know."

"Does it still haunt you?"

"Not much."

"In a way we killed him."

He looked at me in amazement. "He fell and hit his head on a stone. That was what killed him. It was a good thing. He wouldn't be able to murder any more innocent little girls."

"But we ... disposed of him."

"Hm. Perhaps we should have left him there on the grass and reported it. That would have been the right thing to do, I suppose."

"Yes, Ben, I wish we had."

"There would have been a lot of questions. It would have been horrible for you ... for me, too. No, what happened was best. He would have been hanged in any case."

"I tell myself that."

"My dear Angelet. I believe it has worried you terribly."

"And you?"

"I don't think about it. It happened. I knocked him down and he struck his head on a stone. It killed him. We put him in that pool. That finished it."

"I wish I had felt like that."

"My dear Angel, it was easier for me. I was not nearly raped and murdered. You were the one who suffered that nightmare."

He had pulled up and was looking at me.

"It has been on your mind all this time. Oh, you poor little Angel." He took my hand and kissed it. "I wish I'd known. I would have come to comfort you and made you see it as I did."

"All the way from Australia?"

He looked at me solemnly. "From the ends of the Earth," he said.

"Well, it would have been from the other side."

We laughed and he said: "You don't still feel guilty, do you?"

"I feel better and better. Seeing you helps."

"I'm so glad you have come, Angel. I've thought a lot about you."

"You mean because of that man?"

"No ... not only that ... though it was quite something to share together, wasn't it? But there were other things ... our rides ... our talks. Do you remember how we used to go to the moor, tie up our horses and lie on the grass and talk?"

"Yes, I remember."

"Such happy times. Memorable times. I shall never forget them. We must go riding like this ... often, Angel."

"We shall both have work to do."

"We'll find time. Come on."

He started to gallop and I went after him.

Suddenly he pulled up. "Look at all this," he said. "Fine grazing land. Morley territory ... miles and miles of it."

"He doesn't put fences round to keep people out."

That made Ben laugh. "My dear Angelet, he couldn't do it if he wanted to. It's too vast. As long as we don't steal his sheep we're welcome here. Look at this place. We could tie up our horses on that bush, and we could sit and talk as we used to. It brings back our youth, doesn't it?"

"A good idea."

And it was just as it had been all those years ago on Bodmin Moor.

"I always remembered the tale you told me of the men who found gold in the tin mine and how they left a portion of the profits to those weird little men ... who were they?"

"The knackers."

"I remembered that when I heard there was gold here ... in Australia. Well, I shan't be looking for gold in a tin mine, but in a far more likely place."