Fern Vale.

Volume 1.

by Colin Munro.

PREFACE.

Some fifteen years ago, when the first mention was made in the Imperial Parliament of the intention of Her Majesty to dismember the Northern districts of New South Wales, for the purpose of establishing a refuge for the expatriated felons of Great Britain, a certain n.o.ble lord rose to enquire where New South Wales was, and whether it was anywhere in the vicinity of Botany Bay.

Since the time of this sapient patrician much has been said, and more has been written, respecting our antipodean empire; though I believe the ma.s.s of the English people are still as unacquainted with the characteristics of the colony, and the manners of colonial life, as if the vast continent of Australia remained in its primitive inanition.

Poor as is the knowledge of our friends "at home" respecting their periecian brethren, I grieve to say, with regard to, or rather of, the Australian colonists, that knowledge is too frequently tinged with prejudice and erroneous impressions, formed from the writings of discontented colonists, who, without a sufficiently lengthened residence in the country, or opportunities to form correct opinions, have not only disregarded facts, but have presumed to pa.s.s judgment upon what they have never appreciated or understood, and have written statements decidedly false and scandalous.

It is notorious that in some circles of society, the bare mention of Australia in connexion with any one's name is sufficient to create a feeling of distrust and contempt, and the colonists are at once stamped as being, at least, something mean, with antecedents involved in a suspicious obscurity. Unfortunately there have been writers, too, who have come before the public professing an intimate acquaintance with, and an impartial judgment of, colonial life, who have not failed to heap aspersions on the very name of the country and everything connected with it, and to envenom their writings with the rankest untruths. I have read accounts of colonial society where it has been characterized as the vilest that can be imagined in a civilized state; where the men are spoken of as habitual debauchees, and the women as universally shameless, immoral, and dissipated; where life and property are insecure; and bushrangers are the terror of the inhabitants.

I don't say such productions are numerous. I rejoice that they are not; but many people are inclined to receive such a description as a truthful one, and to consider a true narration of facts as merely an over-drawn and flattering panegyric of an interested author. People have been long accustomed to look upon Australia as only a place for convicts, and the population, if not prisoners themselves or those who have served their allotted term, at least as the descendants of those who have done so. I have frequently had the question gravely put to me whether or not such is the case; and have experienced great difficulty in inducing people to believe otherwise. They forget, if indeed they ever knew, that many leading men in this country owe their position in society to a prosperous career in the Australian colonies, and that more than half the colonial settlers are men of good family connexions who have emigrated to improve their position in occupations which are at the same time remunerative and honourable.

When this is remembered, in conjunction with the fact that transportation has been discontinued for many years, and that, after the expiration of a convict's term of expatriation, if of an incorrigible nature, he invariably returned to the "old country," where he had a wider field for the exercise of his genius, it can't but be seen that, generally, there must be a healthier tone of society in the colony than is credited "at home;" while morality is quite on a par, if not above the ordinary level of British ethics. At the same time it is only but just to state that the greater proportion of what vice does exist is chargeable to that wild and uncontrollable ma.s.s, which, generally attracted to gold-producing countries, necessarily forms there the substratum of the working population; while the native born portion of the people is ent.i.tled to all praise for its strict propriety. To remove this stigma of _mauvais ton_, and establish our fair name in opposition to the mal-impressions which have gained currency respecting the Australian colonists, I have been induced to add another to the tales of Australian life, and to lay "Fern Vale" before the public.

I don't enter the arena so much to defend the colonies collectively, as to present a fair face for the young one of Queensland, and to draw attention to it as a field for British labour, industry, and capital.

And being disposed to think this description of work will find more favour in the eyes of that cla.s.s I would especially desire to attract, than a topographical and statistical treatise, I have blended facts with fiction to present my volume to the public in such a form as to afford amus.e.m.e.nt with information. I have endeavoured to depict life and manners as they exist in Queensland, and to describe the country, its climate, and capabilities. The leading political topics of the day I have also lightly touched upon; but, while craving the indulgence of the public in these interpolations, I may remark I have only treated them to a very cursory glance; considering that, in the present mutable state of legislation in Queensland, to enter more fully into detail would be inadvisable. The colony is young, but the government is infantine; though, notwithstanding that it is little more than two years old, it has proved itself indefatigable, concise, and beneficial in its workings; and many a local incubus has been removed, and many a long felt desideratum been supplied, during its short period of existence.

To ill.u.s.trate what the district was, and what it had to labour under, I have drawn all my characters as existing under the _regime_ prior to the felicitous epoch of "separation." But to prevent my readers from forming an erroneous impression of our model colony, I will succinctly furnish a synopsis of our march of improvement.

The old iniquitous land system has been abolished; and in its place one subst.i.tuted similar to what I have mentioned in this work as being the scheme of Dr. Lang. One of the first acts of the new government was to sweep away the trite and c.u.mbersome machinery of the old system, by making nugatory the existing law of the parent colony, and to pa.s.s an act which, for liberality, perhaps stands unequalled. Its main features are--for pastoral purposes--occupation and settlement, with right of tenure, subject to a rental of one farthing per acre per annum; and for agricultural lands--free selection for purchase at the fixed rate of one pound per acre, with a right to rent in contiguity thrice the quant.i.ty purchased for a period of five years at a yearly rental of sixpence per acre, with the option of purchase at the expiration of the lease, at the residue of the purchase money, viz., 17s. 6d. per acre. To all immigrants paying their own pa.s.sage, a remission of their pa.s.sage money is granted in an equivalent of land. This, with the activity of the government in throwing large tracts of land into the market, has done away with a good many of the abuses detailed in our narrative; more especially the "station jobbing," attributed to Bob Smithers, and the vexatious detentions to small capitalists desirous of becoming farmers.

Another of its features is the inducement held out to the agriculturalist to cultivate cotton in the shape of bounties almost amounting to the value of the staple. The towns have also been benefited by the establishment of munic.i.p.alities which have removed many long standing nuisances. The old forensic injustice, and judicial burlesques, have been annihilated by the appointment of district police magistrates; and, in fact, the whole country and people have "gone a head."

With regard to the incidents of my story I may say that, almost without an exception, they are facts well known to Moreton Bay people; and, though I have used some discrimination in their collocation, so as to a certain extent to shield the actual actors from the public gaze, I have in no way exceeded the margin of truth. The scene at the "Bullock's Head," I must guard against any charge of plagiarism by stating, is the description of an actual occurrence which took place not many years ago in the town of Brisbane, and, if I mistake not, the princ.i.p.al actor in which is still living, and in this country. Captain Jones' marriage, its results, the poisoning, murder, and protection society, are all drawn from life; though, as I've said before, varied in their arrangement. Neither have I indulged in any flights of the imagination in depicting the horrible, but rather subdued the poignancy of the original; particularly in the case of the murder, which in my hands has received considerable detrition. Though the proceedings of "the society"

may be said to be the "coinage of my brain," I have not hazarded such an accusation, as is contained in their narration, without being possessed of sufficiently authentic information to warrant me in doing so. After the melancholy event, from which I borrowed the idea of the Strawberry Hill ma.s.sacre, it is known for a fact that the blacks mysteriously disappeared from the country; while the squatters were out in arms for weeks scouring the bush, and made no secret of their enrollment for a mutual protection. At the same time I have heard a settler of the district, and one of considerable means and standing, when alcohol had stimulated his nerves and courage, boast that he had shot _hundreds_ of blacks; and have also heard others speak of such an action as merely an unpleasant necessity. I must caution my readers, however, from imagining that, because the tragical event which immediately precedes the _denoument_ of my plot occupies so conspicuous a place in the narrative, such dangers are incidental to a residence in the bush. Far from it.

Security reigns supreme; and I merely engrafted the too well known catastrophe to my compilation to add interest to the tale. Such visitations are, happily, not to be heard of once in a generation, and then only on the extreme borders of civilisation. Convicts are no longer noticeable, and bushrangers are only known as myths or scourges of historical notoriety.

The peculiar idiom of the blacks, in their conversation with the settler, I have introduced to give some idea of the unintelligible and periphrastic jargon the whites have to adopt to make themselves understood. And so accustomed do the squatters, and their men, become in its use that they naturally fall into it whenever they experience any difficulty in making themselves understood by any one not acquainted with their language. Hence all foreigners, of whom, especially Germans and Chinese, there are a great many in the colony, who have not a thorough knowledge of the English tongue when they come to the country, acquire this peculiar phraseology.

I fear I must crave the pardon of many of my friends for having introduced into my book some little episodes in their personal history which they may not have desired to have had laid before the world. But, though such may be recognisable to themselves, I feel safe in expressing my confidence that to the public they will remain hid by the veil of fiction.

LONDON, _1st May 1862_.

CHAPTER I.

"Sister, farewell: I must to Coventry; As much good stay with thee, as go with me."

RICHARD II., _Act_ 1, _Sc._ 2.

"Good-bye, Kate, I can't help leaving you at least for a time; and if we can make any settlement with Smithers for any of his country, you know I'll soon be back for you: so don't make me disheartened by seeing you so melancholy. John has started some time since with the pack-horses, and seeing you had run away from the parlour while the governor was talking to me, I have followed you to see you look cheerful, and get another kiss before we part. My mother thinks me already on the road, and Joey is only strapping on my valise to the saddle."

"I shall be so lonely, Will, when you are gone; I'll have no one to ride with, and as for kangaroos, I am sure I shall not see one until you return, for you know Papa never cares about going out with the dogs. You may as well take the poor things with you, for they will be of no use here; they will be company and afford amus.e.m.e.nt to you."

"Oh, never mind them, Kitty, I'm for work not sport; but come now dry up your tears, and while I am away be sure and make yourself a proficient in housekeeping, because you know, if we succeed in forming a station, as soon as we can get up a decent sort of a 'humpie,' and comfortably settled, I will come and fetch you; and know thou, my Kitty darling, if you do not make your brothers as contented as they in their gracious will shall desire, they will publish throughout the length and breadth of the land the short-comings of their pert little sister; and the decree once gone forth that our Kitty is a useless little baggage, and not fit to be a squatter's wife, what will she do then?"

"She will tell her brothers' friends that she is the persecuted victim of a pair of ungrateful fellows, who are never satisfied with anything that is done for them, and I know which of us they will believe. But, Willie, Mr. Wigton tells us the blacks are very troublesome down where you are going: will there be any danger in living there?"

"Not the slightest, my dear: it is all nonsense the way in which croakers talk about the blacks. Some of our imperious settlers, by their own conduct, encourage them to commit depredations and to revenge wrongs; but, for my part, I never knew a black fellow make an unprovoked aggression, whereas Mr. Wigton merely speaks from what he has been told by the squatters."

"Well, but, Willie, you say the country is quite unoccupied: will not the natives be dreadfully wild, and easily provoked to commit some horrible act? Would it not be better to avoid any risk, by getting a station in some more settled part of the country?"

"Believe me, my pet, your fears are perfectly groundless; I have had more experience with the blacks than most people, and I have no unpleasant apprehensions from our squattage. However, our speculations are all in precedence of our plans, and your objections are only advanced on conjecture; it will be quite time for you to disparage our home when we have formed one, and I can a.s.sure you, my dear Kate, neither John nor I would wish you to leave the security of our parents'

roof for our protection, if by so doing you would imperil your precious little self. But, even if there were any danger to us, to you, I believe, there would be none; unless indeed it were to be carried off by some bold, adventurous, and enthusiastic son of the soil to receive the homage of his ill.u.s.trious countrymen as their tutelary angel. But to prevent any such predatory outrage, we will form ourselves into a body-guard and enlist the services of all the knights-errant of the neighbourhood."

"You are an impudent fellow, and I have a good mind to give at once my refusal to go; but if you do settle there, I hope you will cultivate the acquaintance of some nice people, if there are any near you."

"Nice gentlemen you mean, I know. Oh, yes! I will try and oblige you on that point; but good-bye, Kate, I must be off."

With this remark concluded the colloquy of William Ferguson and his sister, Kate; and after a mutual embrace, the young man bounded from the room, and in a few minutes might have been seen riding through the bush at a sharp canter, in company with his black boy, Joey, to overtake his brother on the road, who, as the reader has already learnt, left the house some time previously with the pack-horses, laden with the provisions and necessary articles requisite for their journey. While we leave the young men to proceed on their way, and their sister sitting listlessly gazing with tearful eyes through the open window of the drawing-room, conjuring in her imagination the scenes through which her brothers were about to pa.s.s, we will cursorily glance at the family whose acquaintance we have just made.

Mr. Ferguson, the elder, the proprietor of Acacia creek, where we find ourselves for the _nonce_ located, was a gentleman who had attained the meridian of life, though years sat lightly on his open brow. He was tall and handsome, robust in const.i.tution, affable, benign, and hospitable in disposition; a fond father, and one of the most respected settlers in the district of which he was a magistrate. As his history is somewhat romantic, the reader may be disposed to pardon the digression, in our stopping here to give a brief outline of it.

John Ferguson, who was a native of Scotland, and a member of an ancient family who prided itself on its blood and lineage more than on its virtues and frugality, was early left to battle with the world through the prodigality of a parent, whose greatest pleasure was to keep the most hospitable board in his county, and whose greatest dread was to be stigmatised with (what was to him the _acme_ of derogation) meanness and parsimony. Though the family, through the extravagance of its head, was reduced to extreme penury, it was with the utmost difficulty the pride and prejudices of the father could be overcome, to be induced to allow his son to accept an appointment in a government office in London, which had been obtained through the intervention of a well-wisher of the family, and offered to the young man.

The course of life, which the acceptance of this situation would open to the fancy of young Ferguson, was congenial to his ardent imagination and enthusiastic spirit. He therefore joyfully accepted the post, which was kindly and delicately offered as a means of employment and support to himself and of pecuniary relief to his parents, as a stepping-stone to fortune; while the romance with which his disposition was tinged, served to picture to his prophetic vision, scenes of official gradation and pre-eminence. How often do young men of similar temperament indulge in the same enticing speculations, and allow themselves to be carried away by the blissful creations of a fertile fancy; alas! only to awake from the intoxication of their delightful dream, to realize the pangs of a bitter disappointment, and a total dispersion of all their brightest hopes. Not that we deprecate the indulgence of such romantic feelings.

We believe it frequently produces that emulation, by which a persevering and indomitable spirit is frequently enabled to realize the dreams of the bright imaginative fertility of youthful ardency; but, as we shall presently see it was in the case of young Ferguson, so it is too often in general life, that such visions are doomed to speedy dissipation.

In due time the young man entered upon the duties of his office with a zeal commensurate to the exalted nature of his expectancy; but the ideal varnish of his mental conception speedily vanished under the hard brushing of a monotonous official routine, and his romance succ.u.mbed to the realities of a mundane experience. Though the appointment, to which our young friend had been inducted, was all that could have been desired for the scion of a n.o.ble house, whose pampered whims and vices were to be ministered to by the lavish hand of a fond parent, and where the display of mental abilities was no more necessary than in the propulsion of the mechanism of one of Her Majesty's establishments erected for the ambulating exercises of petty delinquents, yet to a young and high-spirited nature, such as John Ferguson's, the very absence of any intellectual requirements in the performance of the duties devolving upon him, caused him soon to feel a distaste for the service; while the indolence and self-importance practised and a.s.sumed by his colleagues (and so much emulated by the cla.s.s of candidates for such honours) were to him extremely irksome and disagreeable, and early caused his energetic disposition to be dissatisfied with his position.

He had been some little time in his office, and began to experience the feelings which we have described, when, through the instrumentality of the kind friend to whom he was indebted for his appointment, he began to circulate in that society which by his family connexions he was ent.i.tled to mix in. To say he was not fascinated with the polish, gaieties, and pleasures of a fashionable town life, would be to conceal the truth: though, at the same time, we must say their hollowness soon became apparent to his mind; and he, instead of following the example of most men in similar circ.u.mstances, and making himself the slave to the pleasures and dissipations of the fashionable world, looked calmly on the allurements of society, and preserved a perfect control over his mind and morals. During the vortex of a London season, he added to the list of his friends a merchant of considerable standing, and of very large reputed wealth. In the house of this gentleman, who was pleased with the young man's sterling qualities, apparent to the quick perception of the man of business, he received a _carte blanche_; and thence commenced the intimacy which formed the romance of his life.

Mr. Williamson, the gentleman of whom we have spoken, had an only daughter, the mistress of his house, and the idol of his heart and of all who knew her. She was beautiful in the extreme. Her disposition was of the sweetest description, and fully justified the lavishment of the fond parental affection with which she was blessed; while her amiability was only equalled by her dutiful attention and consideration of the smallest wish of her kind and doating parent. That such a being should arrest the notice of a young man of the temperament of John Ferguson is not to be wondered at, nor that his attention was rivetted on her the first moment his eyes were gladdened with the seraphic vision. The first feeling of admiration soon gave place to a sentiment of a warmer kind, and it was not long ere young Ferguson was hopelessly entangled in the meshes of Cupid's net, deeply immersed in the sea of love; which, for his ardent nature, was of that turbulent kind that knew no control, nor experienced any pleasure, except in the society of his fair enslaver.

This feeling was long kept a secret within his own bosom, and his time glided happily by in the sweet countenance of this charming creature, content in the privilege of loving, and fearful lest a disclosure of his sentiment should break the spell.

Love is a strange emotion; its inexplicable workings operate with an occult influence, irresistible and unaccountable; and while our hearts receive a glow and pleasure at the mere contemplation of the object of our love, our selfish gratification blinds us to all but our own extatic delight, and eliminates from our minds all considerations not directly tending to a consummation of our desires. At the same time our cowardice often operates on our fancies so as to create fears, lest to the object of whom we are enamoured we prove indifferent, and we fancy ourselves almost criminal for loving. Though possibly not a common phase in the _esprit d'amour_, it was, nevertheless, the one in which burnt the lamp of our friend; for though he loved Miss Kate Williamson to distraction, he never ventured to breathe one word to her that was likely to disclose the fire that consumed his heart. 'Tis true her manner to him, though cordial in the extreme, was not such as to inspire him with the idea that his love was reciprocated. With the high sense of her filial duty, she conceived herself bound to receive the authorized attentions of a gentleman possessing the warrant of her father's friendship, and, in return for that friend's civilities, to tender those little captivating mannerisms, and throw into her receptions and interviews those sweet and winning ways, so peculiar to beings of her stamp. Beyond that, however, she gave him no encouragement. It may be she soon perceived, what John Ferguson failed to conceal, the pleasure which he enjoyed while in her society; it may also be that those visits, which she at first considered a duty to her parent to receive, she afterwards welcomed with receptions as warm and cordial as possible, compatible with her own modesty; and it may be true that she began to admire their visitor for his own merits, and reciprocate pleasure in their numerous interviews, while she little dreamt, that what she considered the mere acts of hospitality, were making such havoc in the breast of John Ferguson. He, on the other hand, while admiring the bright object ever in his mind, feared venturing a disclosure, which, in his position and prospects, his conscience whispered to him would be considered presumptuous. Thus matters rested, until a fortuitous circ.u.mstance broke the spell that bound these two young hearts, and disclosed to each the transitory nature of their dream.

A young physician of considerable practice, good connexions, gentlemanly manners, and prepossessing appearance, and who had long been known to and intimate with the family, in an interview with Mr. Williamson, declared his admiration for his daughter's virtues, and expressed an esteem for herself, that justified the father in sanctioning his request to be admitted as an acknowledged suitor for the young lady's hand; and his pretensions to her regards were supported by her father, who believed their congeniality of tempers would render such an alliance happy and prosperous.

Miss Williamson listened to the appeals of her admirer, we must admit, with satisfaction; and though his addresses were not distasteful, she felt a pang in her heart that plainly told her it was already possessed by another. It required but this spark to kindle the flame that had long been smoldering in her breast; and at the moment when, had she not known John Ferguson, she would have been pleased and flattered with the protestations of her suitor, she felt disappointed and distressed that those proposals had not emanated from another source. The very contemplation of this disappointment increased the warmth and ardour of her affection for young Ferguson, while it annihilated all thoughts of the other; and even, respecting as she did the wishes of her father, she could offer no encouragement to his medical friend. The young son of Galen, unacquainted as he was with the real state of the lady's feelings, attributed her taciturn abstraction to the innate modesty of her nature, and therefore delicately refrained from pressing proposals which he perceived she was not prepared to entertain. Contemplating the resumption of the subject at a future time, when the lady's mind would have in all probability recovered the shock, which he imagined was occasioned by the novelty of her situation, he left her, while he expressed the deepest devotion and unalterable attachment.

Shortly after this interview, the young men met at the table of their hospitable host; and there for the first time John Ferguson discovered the position in which the young physician stood to the family. He watched with a jealous eye the movements of his rival, who, though noticing a peculiarity in his young friend's manner, never dreamt of the true cause of his dejection. The contention in the breast of the lady was equally painful; for, while she divined the nature of Ferguson's melancholy, and was aware that the young doctor's attentions to her would lead her taciturn lover to imagine she was gratified with and encouraged them, she could give him no clue to her own feelings; while her devotion to parental authority deterred her from slighting her more voluble admirer, and her kind and amiable disposition shrank from a.s.suming a state of feelings foreign to her nature. John Ferguson retired from the presence of his loved one, with a heavier heart than he had ever experienced before; and, after being the prey to a series of mental convulsions, at a late hour of the night he retired, not to sleep, but to a further meditation in a horizontal position. The morning dawned without any alleviation of his miseries, and, on the impulse of his natural impetuosity, he formed those plans which entirely altered the course of his subsequent prospects and career.

The Australian colonies, at this time, were attracting public attention, and John Ferguson determined to escape from his thraldom and misery, by chalking out a home for himself at the antipodes; his fancy lending its aid to picture the realisation of a fortune, and the oblivion of his misplaced affection. This resolution once formed, he determined to carry it out in such a way as to preclude the possibility of being deterred by any undue influence; and without acquainting any of his friends of his designs, he took his departure, merely writing to his mother the cause of his sudden flight. In this letter to his parent, as may be imagined, he expatiated on the beauty, grace, accomplishments, and virtues of the unwitting instrument of his expatriation; confessed his undying love with his usual enthusiasm, and expressed his belief in her perfect indifference to his sufferings. He also stated that the lady had accepted the addresses of another; and while he deprecated his inability, through the disparity of their positions, to make any formal advances or obtain a footing of equality with his more favoured rival, he declared his decision, rather than submit to the torture he was enduring, to leave the country and const.i.tute himself in a distant land the architect of his own fortune. He concluded by breathing the tenderest affection for his parents, and entreating their forgiveness for his seeming neglect, in parting from them in so cold and unceremonious a manner.

The surprise and consternation of the young man's friends, occasioned by the receipt of this letter, may well be imagined; and if John Ferguson had not been bordering on insanity when he made his rash resolve, he would have hesitated ere he had been the cause of that anguish, which, in his calmer moments, he well knew would be felt. But the past was irrevocable; and the remorse he felt for his neglect and inconsideracy, as his native land receded from his view, still further embittered a spirit surcharged with grief.

The painful throes of his mother's heart, felt at the loss of her son, was far surpa.s.sed by the indignation of his father, who, with his consanguineous prejudices, and supercilious contempt for riches unaccompanied by birth, deemed the claims of his son by blood far superior to the pretensions of the plebeian trader. He only saw in the confessions of his son, the result of a deep-laid plot for his entrapment and ruin, and could only believe his malady to be the result of a collusion on the part of Miss Williamson and her father, by whose joint wiles and chicanery the young man's peace of mind had been destroyed, and he driven from the land. In the firm belief of this, he wrote to Mr. Williamson, adverting in the strongest terms to the injury he conceived himself to have sustained at his hands, couching his epistolary invective in no very polite or considerate language, and enclosing the young man's letter to his mother as a doc.u.mentary proof.

This communication had the effect, at first, of raising the merchant's ire; but, upon more deliberate consideration, his wrath gave way to pity for the father, in whom, through the haughtiness of his clannish spirit, he could detect the anguish for a son's loss, and for the young man, whose sudden disappearance had been to him inexplicable, but in whose conduct he discovered the workings of an honourable nature. With this feeling in his breast, he forewent the indulgence of that animosity that was likely to be occasioned by the letter from the old laird; and he replied to it in a strain of cordiality and commiseration, disavowing, on the part of himself and his daughter, the application of any influence on the feelings of his son calculated to destroy his peace of mind; and denying, until the perusal of the young man's letter, any knowledge of his sentiments towards his daughter, and his entire ignorance of the cause of his disappearance. We may premise, that this explanation brought no further intercourse between the heads of the families, and that Mr. Williamson, though he believed that, if the intimacy between his daughter and young Ferguson had continued, the esteem which she entertained for his young friend would have developed itself into a reciprocation of those sentiments which it was evident had actuated the young man in his confession and flight; yet, at the same time, he did not conceive it possible, in the absence of any confession to his daughter, that such feelings could have existed in her breast.

Therefore he deemed it quite unnecessary to explain to her the information he had obtained, more especially as she had made no enquiry as to the cause of Ferguson's absence, nor even mentioned his name.