Complete Works of E W Hornung Read online

  The Complete Works of

  E. W. HORNUNG

  (1866-1921)

  Contents

  The A. J. Raffles Series

  The Novels

  A BRIDE FROM THE BUSH

  TINY LUTTRELL

  THE BOSS OF TAROOMBA

  THE UNBIDDEN GUEST

  IRRALIE’S BUSHRANGER

  THE ROGUE’S MARCH

  MY LORD DUKE

  YOUNG BLOOD

  DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES

  THE BELLE OF TOORAK

  PECCAVI

  AT LARGE

  THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE

  DENIS DENT

  NO HERO

  MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES

  THE CAMERA FIEND

  FATHERS OF MEN

  THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN

  WITCHING HILL

  The Short Story Collections

  UNDER TWO SKIES

  SOME PERSONS UNKNOWN

  THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN

  THE BLACK MASK

  STINGAREE

  A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

  THE CRIME DOCTOR

  OLD OFFENDERS AND A FEW OLD SCORES

  The Short Stories

  LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  The Poetry

  THE YOUNG GUARD

  The Non-Fiction

  NOTES OF A CAMP-FOLLOWER ON THE WESTERN FRONT

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  © Delphi Classics 2016

  Version 1

  The Complete Works of

  E. W. HORNUNG

  By Delphi Classics, 2016

  COPYRIGHT

  Complete Works of E. W. Hornung

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Delphi Classics.

  © Delphi Classics, 2016.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

  Delphi Classics

  is an imprint of

  Delphi Publishing Ltd

  Hastings, East Sussex

  United Kingdom

  Contact: [email protected]

  www.delphiclassics.com

  Parts Edition Now Available!

  Love reading E. W. Hornung?

  Did you know you can now purchase the Delphi Classics Parts Edition of this author and enjoy all the novels, plays, non-fiction books and other works as individual eBooks? Now, you can select and read individual novels etc. and know precisely where you are in an eBook. You will also be able to manage space better on your eReading devices.

  The Parts Edition is only available direct from the Delphi Classics website.

  For more information about this exciting new format and to try free Parts Edition downloads, please visit this link.

  Explore classic thriller writers with Delphi Classics

  For the first time in digital publishing history, Delphi Classics is proud to present the complete works of these important authors.

  www.delphiclassics.com

  The A. J. Raffles Series

  The Amateur Cracksman (short story collection)

  The Black Mask (short story collection)

  A Thief in the Night (short story collection)

  Mr. Justice Raffles (novel)

  The Novels

  Cleveland Villas, Marton, Middlesbrough — Hornung’s birthplace

  Marton today

  Hornung as a young man

  A BRIDE FROM THE BUSH

  Suffering a precarious health in his adolescent years, E. W. Hornung was seventeen when he decided to leave his childhood home of Uppingham, Rutland, and travel to Australia, hoping the warmer climate would improve his worsening condition. On his arrival he was employed as a tutor to the Parsons family in Mossgiel in the Riverina, south-western New South Wales. As well as teaching, he spent time working in remote sheep stations in the outback and contributing material to the weekly magazine The Bulletin. Hornung also began writing what was to become his first novel, A Bride from the Bush, in 1890. Although he spent only two years in Australia, the experience was to greatly improve his health and launch his career as a writer. Hornung would also look back at his time in New South Wales as one of the most satisfying periods of his life.

  A Bride from the Bush was initially published by Smith, Elder & Co. as a serial in the Cornhill Magazine and then published in book format by the same publishers in October 1890. The novel identifies the flaws of British society by presenting the country through an Australian perspective. The narrative concerns Gladys, a spirited, good-looking girl — raised in the heart of the Australian outback by her father — who has now married into British high society. Her husband Alfred, well meaning, kind and very much in love with her, unwittingly throws her into the perilous experience that is the London summer season. Though beautiful to look upon, it soon becomes apparent that her coarse ways and ‘shocking’ behaviour will prove great deterrents to her advancement. It is an endearing exploration of the trials of being an animated, lively and vigorous young woman in late nineteenth century England.

  A reviewer from The New York Times called the novel “a most piquant contrast between civilization and crudity”. However, the writer Thomas Alexander Browne called the titular character of A Bride from the Bush “a libel to Australian womankind”. A Punch editor made the opposite claim, arguing that the protagonist of the novel is more kind-hearted and attractive than actual Australians.

  Though Hornung would be later chiefly remembered for his A. J. Raffles stories, he himself favoured Australian novels, like A Bride from the Bush. When he published the novel Peccavi in 1900, a critic from The Advertiser wrote a scathing review, suggesting that Hornung should go back to Australia so he could be inspired to write something as good as A Bride from the Bush again. Upon Hornung’s death, a tribute in Freeman’s Journal called A Bride from the Bush “the best and the best known” of Hornung’s Australia-related stories.

  The magazine in which the novel first appeared

  How the novel opens in its serial publication

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  The original frontispiece

  CHAPTER I

  A LETTER FROM ALFRED

  There was consternation in the domestic camp of Mr Justice Bligh on the banks of the Thames. It was a Sunday morning in early summer. Three-fourths of the family sat in ominous silence before the mockery of a well-spread breakfast-table: Sir James and Lady Bligh and their second son, Granville. The eldest son — the missing complement of this family of four — was abroad. For many months back, and, in fact, down to this very minute, it had been pretty confidently believed that the young man was somewhere in the wilds of Australia; no one had quite known where, for the young man, like most vagabond young men, was a terribly meagre corespondent; nor had it ever been clear why any one with leisure and money, and of no very romantic turn, should have left the beaten track of globe-trotters, penetrated to the wilderness, and stayed there — as Alfred Bligh had done. Now, however, all was plain. A letter from Brindisi, j
ust received, explained everything; Alfred’s movements, so long obscure, were at last revealed, and in a lurid light — that, as it were, of the bombshell that had fallen and burst upon the Judge’s breakfast-table. For Alfred was on his way to England with an Australian wife; and this letter from Brindisi, was the first that his people had heard of it, or of her.

  ‘Of course,’ said Lady Bligh, in her calm and thoughtful manner, ‘it was bound to happen sooner or later. It might have happened very much sooner; and, indeed, I often wished that it would; for Alfred must be — what? Thirty?’

  ‘Quite,’ said Granville; ‘I am nearly that myself.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Lady Bligh gently, looking tenderly at the Judge (whose grave eyes rested upon the sunlit lawn outside), ‘from one point of view — a selfish one — we ought to consider ourselves the most fortunate of parents. And this news should be a matter for rejoicing, as it would be, if — if it were only less sudden, and wild, and — and — —’

  Her voice trembled; she could not go on.

  ‘And alarming,’ added Granville briskly, pulling himself together and taking an egg.

  Then the Judge spoke.

  ‘I should like,’ he said, ‘to hear the letter read slowly from beginning to end. Between us, we have not yet given it a fair chance; we have got only the drift of it; we may have overlooked something. Granville, perhaps you will read the letter aloud to your mother and me?’

  Granville, who had just laid open his egg with great skill, experienced a moment’s natural annoyance at the interruption. To stop to read a long letter now was, he felt, treating a good appetite shabbily, to say nothing of the egg. But this was not a powerful feeling; he concealed it. He had a far stronger appetite than the mere relish for food; the intellectual one. Granville had one of the nicest intellects at the Junior Bar. His intellectual appetite was so hearty, and even voracious, that it could be gratified at all times and places, and not only by the loaves and fishes of full-bodied wit, but by the crumbs and fishbones of legal humour — such as the reading aloud of indifferent English and ridiculous sentiments in tones suitable to the most chaste and classic prose. This he had done in court with infinite gusto, and he did it now as he would have done it in court.

  ‘“My dear Mother”’ (he began reading, through a single eyeglass that became him rather well),—’”Before you open this letter you’ll see that I’m on my way home! I am sorry I haven’t written you for so long, and very sorry I didn’t before I sailed. I should think when I last wrote was from Bindarra. But I must come at once to my great news — which Heaven knows how I’m to tell you, and how you’ll take it when I do. Well, I will, in two words — the fact is, I’m married! My wife is the daughter of ‘the boss of Bindarra’ — in other words, a ‘squatter’ with a ‘run’ (or territory) as big as a good many English counties.”’

  The crisp forensic tones were dropped for an explanatory aside. ‘He evidently means — father’ (Granville nearly said ‘my lord,’ through force of habit), ‘that his father-in-law is the squatter; not his wife, which is what he says. He writes in such a slipshod style. I should also think he means that the territory in question is equal in size to certain English counties, individually (though this I venture to doubt), and not — what you would infer — to several counties put together. His literary manner was always detestable, poor old chap; and, of course, Australia was hardly likely to improve it.’

  The interpolation was not exactly ill-natured; but it was received in silence; and Granville’s tones, as he resumed the reading, were even more studiously unsympathetic than before.

  ‘“Of my Bride I will say very little; for you will see her in a week at most. As for myself, I can only tell you, dear Mother, that I am the very luckiest and happiest man on earth!”’ (‘A brave statement,’ Granville murmured in parenthesis; ‘but they all make it.’) ‘“She is typically Australian, having indeed been born and bred in the Bush, and is the first to admit it, being properly proud of her native land; but, if you knew the Australians as I do, this would not frighten you. Far from it, for the typical Australian is one of the very highest if not the highest development of our species.”’ (Granville read that sentence with impressive gravity, and with such deference to the next as to suggest no kind of punctuation, since the writer had neglected it.) ‘“But as you, my dear Mother, are the very last person in the world to be prejudiced by mere mannerisms, I won’t deny that she has one or two — though, mind you, I like them! And, at least, you may look forward to seeing the most beautiful woman you ever saw in your life — though I say it.

  ‘“Feeling sure that you will, as usual, be ‘summering’ at Twickenham, I make equally sure that you will be able and willing to find room for us; at the same time, we will at once commence looking out for a little place of our own in the country, with regard to which we have plans which will keep till we see you. But, while we are with you, I thought I would be able to show my dear girl the principal sights of the Old Country, which, of course, are mostly in or near town, and which she is dying to see.

  ‘“Dear Mother, I know I ought to have consulted you, or at least told you, beforehand. The whole thing was impulsive, I admit. But if you and my Father will forgive me for this — take my word for it, you will soon find out that it is all you have to forgive! Of course, I am writing to my Father as much as to you in this letter — as he will be the first to understand. With dearest love to you both (not forgetting Gran), in which Gladys joins me (though she doesn’t know I am saying so).

  ‘“Believe me as ever,

  ‘“Your affectionate Son,

  ‘“Alfred.”’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Judge, shortly.

  The soft dark eyes of Lady Bligh were wet with tears.

  ‘I think,’ she said, gently, ‘it is a very tender letter. I know of no man but Alfred that could write such a boyish, simple letter — not that I don’t enjoy your clever ones, Gran. But then Alfred never yet wrote to me without writing himself down the dear, true-hearted, affectionate fellow he is; only here, of course, it comes out doubly. But does he not mention her maiden name?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Granville. ‘You remarked the Christian name, though? Gladys! I must say it sounds unpromising. Mary, Eliza, Maria —— one would have rather liked a plain, homely, farm-yard sort of name for a squatter’s daughter. But Ermyntrude, or Elaine, or Gladys! These are names of ill-omen; you expect de Vere coming after them, or even worse.’

  ‘What is a squatter, Gran?’ asked Lady Bligh abruptly.

  ‘A squatter? I don’t know,’ said Gran, paring the ham daintily as he answered. ‘I don’t know, I’m sure; something to do with bushranging, I should imagine — but I really can’t tell you.’

  But there was a set of common subjects of which Gran was profoundly and intentionally ignorant; and it happened that Greater Britain was one of them. If he had known for certain whether Sydney (for instance) was a town or a colony or an island, he would have kept the knowledge carefully to himself, and been thoroughly ashamed of it. And it was the same with other subjects understanded of the Board-scholars. This queer temper of mind is not indeed worth analysing; nevertheless, it is peculiar to a certain sort of clever young fellows, and Granville Bligh was a very fair specimen of the clever young fellow. He was getting on excellently at the Bar, for so young a man. He also wrote a little, with plenty of impudence and epigram, if nothing else. But this was not his real line. Still, what he did at all, he did more or less cleverly. There was cleverness in every line of his smooth dark face; there was uncommon shrewdness in his clear gray eyes. His father had the same face and the same eyes — with this difference added to the differences naturally due to age: there were wisdom, and dignity, and humanity in the face and glance of the Judge; but the nobility of expression thus given was not inherited by the Judge’s younger son.

  The Judge spoke again, breaking a silence of some minutes: —

  ‘As you say, Mildred, it seems to have been
all very wild and sudden; but when we have said this, we have probably said the worst there is to say. At least, let us hope so. Of my own knowledge many men have gone to Australia, as Alfred went, and come back with the best of wives. I seem to have heard, Granville, that that is what Merivale did; and I have met few more admirable women than Mrs Merivale.’

  ‘It certainly is the case, sir,’ said Granville, who had been patronised to some extent by Merivale, Q.C. ‘But Mrs Merivale was scarcely “born and bred in the Bush”; and if she had what poor Alfred, perhaps euphemistically, calls “mannerisms” — I have detected no traces of any myself — when Merivale married her, at least she had money.’

  ‘Your sister-in-law may have “money,” too,’ said Sir James, with somewhat scornful emphasis. ‘That is of no consequence at all. Your brother has enough for both, and more than enough for a bachelor.’

  There was no need to remind the young man of that; it had been a sore point, and even a raw one, with Granville since his boyhood; for it was when the brothers were at school together — the younger in the Sixth Form, the elder in the Lower Fifth — and it was already plain which one would benefit the most by ‘private means,’ that a relative of Sir James had died, leaving all her money to Alfred.

  Granville coloured slightly — very slightly — but observed: —

  ‘It is a good thing he has.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ the Judge asked, with some asperity.

  ‘That he needs it,’ said Granville, significantly.

  Sir James let the matter drop, and presently, getting up, went out by the open French window, and on to the lawn. It was not his habit to snub his son; he left that to the other judges, in court. But Lady Bligh remonstrated in her own quiet way — a way that had some effect even upon Granville.