The evening before the happy day the pair were seen walking together before sundown on a vacant lot in the township, discussing, it was supposed, the arrangements for the morrow.

It was the time of the harvest, and Philip had been engaged to measure the work of the reapers on a number of farms.  I am aware that he asked and received 1 pound for each paddock, irrespective of area.  On the bridal morn he walked over Frank’s farm with his chain and began the measurement, the reapers, most of them broken down diggers, following him and watching him.  Old Jimmy Gillon took one end of the chain; he said he had been a chainman when the railway mania first broke out in Scotland, so he knew all about land surveying.  Frank was absent, but he returned while Philip was calculating the wages payable to each reaper, and he said:  “Here’s the money, master; pay the men what’s coming to ’em and send ’em away.”

Frank looked very sulky, and Philip was puzzled.  He knew the blissful ceremony was to take place that day, but there was no sign of it, nor of any bliss whatever; no wedding garments, no parson, no bride.

The bare matter of fact was, the bride had eloped during the night.

“For young Lochinvar had come out of the West, And an underbred, fine-spoken fellow was he.”

He was a bullock-driver of superior manners and attractive personality, and was the only man in Australia who waxed and curled his moustaches.  Cecily had for some time been listening to Lochinvar, who was known to have been endeavouring to “cut out” Frank.  She was staying in the township with her mother preparing for matrimony, and her horse was in the stable at Howell’s Hotel.

When Frank rode away to his farm on that fateful evening, Lochinvar was watching him.  He saw Cecily going home to her mother for the last night, and while he was looking after her wistfully, and the pangs of despairing love were in his heart, Bill the Butcher came up and said: 

“Well, Lock, what are you going to do?”

“Why, what can I do?  She is going to marry Frank in the morning.”

“I don’t believe it:  not if you are half the man you ought to be.”

“But how can I help it?”

“Help it?  Just go and take her.  Saddle your horse and her own, take ’em up to the cottage, and ask her just to come outside for a minute.  And if you don’t persuade her in five minutes to ride away with you to Ballarat, I’ll eat my head off.  I know she don’t want to marry Frank; all she wants is an excuse not to, and it will be excuse enough when she has married you.”

These two worthy men went to the Hotel and talked the matter over with Howell.  The jolly landlord slapped his knee and laughed.  He said:  “You are right, Bill.  She’ll go, I’ll bet a fiver, and here it is, Lock; you take it to help you along.”

This base conspiracy was successful, and that was the reason Frank was so sulky on that harvest morning.