Chapter Twenty.Runaway Stock—Bivouac in the Bush-Night Scene.Australian cattle have one characteristic in common with some breeds of pigeons, notably with those we call “homers.” They have extremely good memories as to localities, and a habit of “making back,” as it is termed, to the pastures from which they have been driven. This comes to be very awkward at times, especially if a whole herd decamps or takes “a moonlight flitting.”It would be mere digression to pause to enquire what God-given instinct it is, that enables half-wild cattle to find their way back to their old homes in as straight a line as possible, even when they have been driven to a new station by circuitous routes. Many other animals have this same homing power; dogs for example, and, to a greater extent, cats. Swallows and sea-birds, such as the Arctic gull, and the albatross, possess it in a very high degree; but it is still more wonderfully displayed in fur seals that, although dispersed to regions thousands and thousands of miles away during winter, invariably and unerringly find their road back to a tiny group of wave and wind-swept islands, four in number, called the Prybilov group, in the midst of the fog-shrouded sea of Behring. The whole question wants a deal of thinking out, and life is far too short to do it in.One morning, shortly after the arrival of the first great herd of stock, word was brought to head-quarters that the cattle had escaped by stampede, and were doubtless on their way to the distant station whence they had been bought.It was no time to ask the question, Who was in fault? Early action was necessary, and was provided for without a moment’s hesitation.I rather think that Archie was glad to have an opportunity of doing a bit of rough riding, and showing off his skill in horse management. He owned what Bob termed a clipper. Not a very handsome horse to look at, perhaps, but fleet enough and strong enough for anything. As sure-footed as a mule was this steed, and as regards wisdom, a perfect equine Solomon.At a suggestion of Bob’s he had been named Tell, in memory of the Tell of other days. Tell had been ridden by Archie for many weeks, so that master and horse knew each other well. Indeed Archie had received a lesson or two from the animal that he was not likely to forget; for one day he had so far forgotten himself as to dig the rowel into Tell’s sides, when there was really no occasion to do anything of the sort. This was more than the horse could stand, and, though he was not an out-and-out buck-jumper, nevertheless, a moment after the stirrup performance, Archie found himself making a voyage of discovery, towards the moon apparently. He descended as quickly almost as he had gone up, and took the ground on his shoulder and cheek, which latter was well skinned. Tell had stood quietly by looking at him, and as Archie patted him kindly, he forgave him on the spot, and permitted a remount.Archie and Bob hardly permitted themselves to swallow breakfast, so anxious were they to join the stockmen and be off.As there was no saying when they might return, they did not go unprovided for a night or two out. In front of their saddles were strapped their opossum rugs, and they carried also a tin billy each, and provisions, in the shape of tea, damper, and cooked corned beef; nothing else, save a change of socks and their arms.Bob bade his wife a hurried adieu, Archie waved his hand, and next minute they were over the paddocks and through the clearings and the woods, in which the trees had been ring-barked, to permit the grass to grow. And such tall grass Archie had never before seen as that which grew in some parts of the open.“Is it going to be a long job, think you, Bob?”“I hardly know, Archie. But Craig is here.”“Oh, yes, Gentleman Craig, as Mr Winslow insists on calling him! You have seen him.”“Yes; I met him at Brisbane. And a handsome chap he is. Looks like a prince.”“Isn’t it strange he doesn’t rise from the ranks, as one might say; that he doesn’t get on?”“I’ll tell you what keeps him back,” said Bob, reining his horse up to a dead stop, that Archie might hear him all the easier.“I’ll tell you what keeps him back now, before you see him. I mustn’t talk loud, for the very birds might go and tell the fellow, and he doesn’t like to be ’minded about it. He drinks!”“But he can’t get drink in the Bush.”“Not so easily, though he has been known before now to ride thirty miles to visit a hotel.”“A shanty, you mean.”“Well, they call ’em all hotels over here, you must remember.”“And would he just take a drink and come back?”Bob laughed.“Heaven help him, no. It isn’t one drink, nor ten, nor fifty he takes, for he makes a week or two of it.”“I hope he won’t take any such long rides while he is with us.”“No. Winslow says we are sure of him for six months, anyhow. Then he’ll go to town and knock his cheque down. But come on, Craig and his lads will be waiting for us.”At the most southerly and easterly end of the selection they met Gentleman Craig himself.He rode forward to meet them, lifting his broad hat, and reining up when near enough. He did this in a beautifully urbane fashion, that showed he had quite as much respect for himself as for his employers. He was indeed a handsome fellow, and his rough Garibaldian costume fitted him, and set him out as if he had been some great actor.“This is an awkward business,” he began, with an easy smile; “but I think we’ll soon catch the runaways up.”“I hope so,” Bob said.“Oh, it was all my fault, because I’m boss of my gang, you know. I ought to have known better, but a small mob of stray beasts got among ours, and by-and-by there was a stampede. It was dirty-dark last night, and looked like a storm, so there wouldn’t have been an ounce of use in following them up.”He flicked his long whip half saucily, half angrily, as he spoke.“Well, never mind,” Bob replied, “we’ll have better luck next, I’ve no doubt.”Away they went now at a swinging trot, and on crossing the creek they met Craig’s fellows.They laid their horses harder at it now, Bob and Archie keeping a bit in the rear, though the latter declared that Tell was pulling like a young steam-engine.“Why,” cried Archie at last, “this beast means to pull my arms out at the shoulders. I always thought I knew how to hold the reins till now.”“They have a queer way with them, those bush-ranging horses,” said Bob; “but I reckon you’ll get up to them at last.”“If I were to give Tell his head, he would soon be in the van.”“In the van? Oh, I see, in the front!”“Yes; and then I’d be lost. Why these chaps appear to know every inch of the ground. To me it is simply marvellous.”“Well, the trees are blazed.”“I’ve seen no blazed trees. Have you?”“Never a one. I say, Craig.”“Hullo!” cried the head stockman, glancing over his shoulder.“Are you steering by blazed trees?”“No,” he laughed; “by tracks. Cattle don’t mind blazed trees much.”Perhaps Bob felt green now, for he said no more. Archie looked about him, but never a trail nor track could he decipher.Yet on they rode, helter-skelter apparently, but cautiously enough for all that. Tell was full of fire and fun; for, like Verdant Green’s horse, when put at a tiny tree trunk in his way, he took a leap that would have carried him over a five-bar-gate.There was many a storm-felled tree in the way also and many a dead trunk, half buried in ferns; there were steep stone-clad hills, difficult to climb, but worse to descend, and many a little rivulet to cross; but nothing could interfere with the progress of these hardy horses.Although the sun was blazing hot, no one seemed to feel it much. The landscape was very wild, and very beautiful; but Archie got weary at last of its very loveliness, and was not one whit sorry when the afternoon halt was called under the pleasant shade of trees, and close by the banks of a rippling stream.The horses were glad to drink as well as the men, then they were hobbled, and allowed to browse while all hands sat down to eat.Only damper and beef, washed down by a billyful of the clear water, which, strange to say, was wonderfully cool.When the sun was sinking low on the forest-clad horizon, there was a joyful but half-suppressed shout from Craig and his men. Part of the herd was in sight, quietly browsing up a creek.Gentleman Craig pointed them out to Archie; but he had to gaze a considerable time before he could really distinguish anything that had the faintest resemblance to cattle.“Your eye is young yet to the Bush,” said Craig, laughing, but not in any unmannerly way.“And now,” he continued, “we must go cautiously or we spoil all.”The horsemen made a wide détour, and got between the bush and the mob; and the ground being favourable, here it was determined to camp for the night. The object of the stockmen was not to alarm the herd, but to prevent them from getting any farther off till morning, when the march homewards would commence. With this intent, log fires were built here and there around the herd; and once these were well alight the mob was considered pretty safe. All, however, had been done very quietly; and during the livelong night, until grey dawn broke over the hills, the fellows would have to keep those fires burning.Supper was a more pleasing meal, for there was the addition of tea; after which, with their feet to the log fire—Bob and Craig enjoying a whiff of tobacco—they lay as much at their ease, and feeling every whit as comfortable, as if at home by the “ingleside.” Gentleman Craig had many stories and anecdotes to relate of the wild life he had had, that both Archie and Bob listened to with delight.“I’ll take one more walk around,” said Craig, “then stretch myself on my downy bed. Will you come with me, Mr Broadbent?”“With pleasure,” said Archie.“Mind how you step then. Keep your whip in your hand, but on no account crack it. We have to use our intellectversusbrute force. If the brute force became alarmed and combined, then our intellect would go to the wall, there would be another stampede, and another long ride to-morrow.”Up and down in the starlight, or by the fitful gleams of the log fires, they could see the men moving like uneasy ghosts. Craig spoke a word or two kindly and quietly as he passed, and having made his inspection, and satisfied himself that all was comparatively safe, he returned with Archie to the fire.Bob was already fast asleep, rolled snugly in his blanket, with his head in the hollow of his upturned saddle; and Archie and Craig made speed to follow his example.As for Craig, he was soon in the land of Nod. He was a true Bushman, and could go off sound as a bell the moment he stretched himself on his “downy bed,” as he called it.But Archie felt the situation far too new to permit of slumber all at once. He had never lain out thus before; and the experience was so delightful to him that he felt justified in lying awake a bit, and looking at the stars. The distant dingoes began to howl, and more than once some great dark bird flew over the camp, high overhead, but on silent wings.His thoughts wandered away over the thousands and thousands of miles that intervened between him and home, and he began to wonder what they were all doing at Burley; for it would be broad daylight there, and very likely his father was trudging over the moors, or through the stubbles. But dreams came and mingled with his waking thoughts at last, and were just usurping them all when he became conscious of the approach of stealthy footsteps.He lay perfectly still, though his hand sought his ready revolver; for stories of black fellows stealing on out-sleeping travellers began to crowd through his mind, and being young to the Bush, he could not prevent that heart of his from throbbing uneasily and painfully against his ribs.How did they brain people, he was wondering, with a boomerang or nullah? or was it not more common to spear them?But, greatly to his relief, the figure immediately afterwards revealed itself in the person of one of the men, silently placing an armful of wood on the half-dying embers. Then he silently glided away again, and next minute Archie was wrapt in the elysium of forgetfulness.The dews lay all about, glittering in the first beams of the sun, when he awoke, feeling somewhat cold and considerably stiff; but warm tea and a breakfast of wondrous solidity soon put him all to rights again.Two nights after this the new stock was safe in the yards; and every evening before sundown, for many a day to come, they had to be “tailed,” and brought within the strong bars of the rendezvous.Branding was the next business. This is no trifling matter with old cattle. With the calves indeed it is a bit troublesome at times, but the grown-up ones resent the adding of insult to injury. It is no uncommon thing for men to be severely injured during the operation. Nevertheless the agility displayed by the stockmen and their excessive coolness is marvellous to behold.Most of those cattle were branded with a “B.H.,” which stood for Bob and Harry; but some were marked with the letters “A.B.,” for Archibald Broadbent, and—I need not hide the truth—Archie was a proud young man when he saw these marks. He realised now fully that he had commenced life in earnest, and was a squatter, not only in name, but in reality.The fencing work and improvements still went gaily on, the ground being divided into immense paddocks, many of which our young farmers trusted to see ere long covered with waving grain.The new herds soon got used to the country, and settled down on it, dividing themselves quietly into herds of their own making, that were found browsing together mornings and evenings in the best pastures, or gathered in mobs during the fierce heat of the middle-day.Archie quickly enough acquired the craft of a cunning and bold stockman, and never seemed happier than when riding neck and neck with some runaway semi-wild bull, or riding in the midst of a mob, selecting the beast that was wanted. And at a job like the latter Tell and he appeared to be only one individual betwixt the two of them, like the fabled Centaur. He came to grief though once, while engaged heading a bull in as ugly a bit of country as any stockman ever rode over. It happened. Next chapter, please.
Australian cattle have one characteristic in common with some breeds of pigeons, notably with those we call “homers.” They have extremely good memories as to localities, and a habit of “making back,” as it is termed, to the pastures from which they have been driven. This comes to be very awkward at times, especially if a whole herd decamps or takes “a moonlight flitting.”
It would be mere digression to pause to enquire what God-given instinct it is, that enables half-wild cattle to find their way back to their old homes in as straight a line as possible, even when they have been driven to a new station by circuitous routes. Many other animals have this same homing power; dogs for example, and, to a greater extent, cats. Swallows and sea-birds, such as the Arctic gull, and the albatross, possess it in a very high degree; but it is still more wonderfully displayed in fur seals that, although dispersed to regions thousands and thousands of miles away during winter, invariably and unerringly find their road back to a tiny group of wave and wind-swept islands, four in number, called the Prybilov group, in the midst of the fog-shrouded sea of Behring. The whole question wants a deal of thinking out, and life is far too short to do it in.
One morning, shortly after the arrival of the first great herd of stock, word was brought to head-quarters that the cattle had escaped by stampede, and were doubtless on their way to the distant station whence they had been bought.
It was no time to ask the question, Who was in fault? Early action was necessary, and was provided for without a moment’s hesitation.
I rather think that Archie was glad to have an opportunity of doing a bit of rough riding, and showing off his skill in horse management. He owned what Bob termed a clipper. Not a very handsome horse to look at, perhaps, but fleet enough and strong enough for anything. As sure-footed as a mule was this steed, and as regards wisdom, a perfect equine Solomon.
At a suggestion of Bob’s he had been named Tell, in memory of the Tell of other days. Tell had been ridden by Archie for many weeks, so that master and horse knew each other well. Indeed Archie had received a lesson or two from the animal that he was not likely to forget; for one day he had so far forgotten himself as to dig the rowel into Tell’s sides, when there was really no occasion to do anything of the sort. This was more than the horse could stand, and, though he was not an out-and-out buck-jumper, nevertheless, a moment after the stirrup performance, Archie found himself making a voyage of discovery, towards the moon apparently. He descended as quickly almost as he had gone up, and took the ground on his shoulder and cheek, which latter was well skinned. Tell had stood quietly by looking at him, and as Archie patted him kindly, he forgave him on the spot, and permitted a remount.
Archie and Bob hardly permitted themselves to swallow breakfast, so anxious were they to join the stockmen and be off.
As there was no saying when they might return, they did not go unprovided for a night or two out. In front of their saddles were strapped their opossum rugs, and they carried also a tin billy each, and provisions, in the shape of tea, damper, and cooked corned beef; nothing else, save a change of socks and their arms.
Bob bade his wife a hurried adieu, Archie waved his hand, and next minute they were over the paddocks and through the clearings and the woods, in which the trees had been ring-barked, to permit the grass to grow. And such tall grass Archie had never before seen as that which grew in some parts of the open.
“Is it going to be a long job, think you, Bob?”
“I hardly know, Archie. But Craig is here.”
“Oh, yes, Gentleman Craig, as Mr Winslow insists on calling him! You have seen him.”
“Yes; I met him at Brisbane. And a handsome chap he is. Looks like a prince.”
“Isn’t it strange he doesn’t rise from the ranks, as one might say; that he doesn’t get on?”
“I’ll tell you what keeps him back,” said Bob, reining his horse up to a dead stop, that Archie might hear him all the easier.
“I’ll tell you what keeps him back now, before you see him. I mustn’t talk loud, for the very birds might go and tell the fellow, and he doesn’t like to be ’minded about it. He drinks!”
“But he can’t get drink in the Bush.”
“Not so easily, though he has been known before now to ride thirty miles to visit a hotel.”
“A shanty, you mean.”
“Well, they call ’em all hotels over here, you must remember.”
“And would he just take a drink and come back?”
Bob laughed.
“Heaven help him, no. It isn’t one drink, nor ten, nor fifty he takes, for he makes a week or two of it.”
“I hope he won’t take any such long rides while he is with us.”
“No. Winslow says we are sure of him for six months, anyhow. Then he’ll go to town and knock his cheque down. But come on, Craig and his lads will be waiting for us.”
At the most southerly and easterly end of the selection they met Gentleman Craig himself.
He rode forward to meet them, lifting his broad hat, and reining up when near enough. He did this in a beautifully urbane fashion, that showed he had quite as much respect for himself as for his employers. He was indeed a handsome fellow, and his rough Garibaldian costume fitted him, and set him out as if he had been some great actor.
“This is an awkward business,” he began, with an easy smile; “but I think we’ll soon catch the runaways up.”
“I hope so,” Bob said.
“Oh, it was all my fault, because I’m boss of my gang, you know. I ought to have known better, but a small mob of stray beasts got among ours, and by-and-by there was a stampede. It was dirty-dark last night, and looked like a storm, so there wouldn’t have been an ounce of use in following them up.”
He flicked his long whip half saucily, half angrily, as he spoke.
“Well, never mind,” Bob replied, “we’ll have better luck next, I’ve no doubt.”
Away they went now at a swinging trot, and on crossing the creek they met Craig’s fellows.
They laid their horses harder at it now, Bob and Archie keeping a bit in the rear, though the latter declared that Tell was pulling like a young steam-engine.
“Why,” cried Archie at last, “this beast means to pull my arms out at the shoulders. I always thought I knew how to hold the reins till now.”
“They have a queer way with them, those bush-ranging horses,” said Bob; “but I reckon you’ll get up to them at last.”
“If I were to give Tell his head, he would soon be in the van.”
“In the van? Oh, I see, in the front!”
“Yes; and then I’d be lost. Why these chaps appear to know every inch of the ground. To me it is simply marvellous.”
“Well, the trees are blazed.”
“I’ve seen no blazed trees. Have you?”
“Never a one. I say, Craig.”
“Hullo!” cried the head stockman, glancing over his shoulder.
“Are you steering by blazed trees?”
“No,” he laughed; “by tracks. Cattle don’t mind blazed trees much.”
Perhaps Bob felt green now, for he said no more. Archie looked about him, but never a trail nor track could he decipher.
Yet on they rode, helter-skelter apparently, but cautiously enough for all that. Tell was full of fire and fun; for, like Verdant Green’s horse, when put at a tiny tree trunk in his way, he took a leap that would have carried him over a five-bar-gate.
There was many a storm-felled tree in the way also and many a dead trunk, half buried in ferns; there were steep stone-clad hills, difficult to climb, but worse to descend, and many a little rivulet to cross; but nothing could interfere with the progress of these hardy horses.
Although the sun was blazing hot, no one seemed to feel it much. The landscape was very wild, and very beautiful; but Archie got weary at last of its very loveliness, and was not one whit sorry when the afternoon halt was called under the pleasant shade of trees, and close by the banks of a rippling stream.
The horses were glad to drink as well as the men, then they were hobbled, and allowed to browse while all hands sat down to eat.
Only damper and beef, washed down by a billyful of the clear water, which, strange to say, was wonderfully cool.
When the sun was sinking low on the forest-clad horizon, there was a joyful but half-suppressed shout from Craig and his men. Part of the herd was in sight, quietly browsing up a creek.
Gentleman Craig pointed them out to Archie; but he had to gaze a considerable time before he could really distinguish anything that had the faintest resemblance to cattle.
“Your eye is young yet to the Bush,” said Craig, laughing, but not in any unmannerly way.
“And now,” he continued, “we must go cautiously or we spoil all.”
The horsemen made a wide détour, and got between the bush and the mob; and the ground being favourable, here it was determined to camp for the night. The object of the stockmen was not to alarm the herd, but to prevent them from getting any farther off till morning, when the march homewards would commence. With this intent, log fires were built here and there around the herd; and once these were well alight the mob was considered pretty safe. All, however, had been done very quietly; and during the livelong night, until grey dawn broke over the hills, the fellows would have to keep those fires burning.
Supper was a more pleasing meal, for there was the addition of tea; after which, with their feet to the log fire—Bob and Craig enjoying a whiff of tobacco—they lay as much at their ease, and feeling every whit as comfortable, as if at home by the “ingleside.” Gentleman Craig had many stories and anecdotes to relate of the wild life he had had, that both Archie and Bob listened to with delight.
“I’ll take one more walk around,” said Craig, “then stretch myself on my downy bed. Will you come with me, Mr Broadbent?”
“With pleasure,” said Archie.
“Mind how you step then. Keep your whip in your hand, but on no account crack it. We have to use our intellectversusbrute force. If the brute force became alarmed and combined, then our intellect would go to the wall, there would be another stampede, and another long ride to-morrow.”
Up and down in the starlight, or by the fitful gleams of the log fires, they could see the men moving like uneasy ghosts. Craig spoke a word or two kindly and quietly as he passed, and having made his inspection, and satisfied himself that all was comparatively safe, he returned with Archie to the fire.
Bob was already fast asleep, rolled snugly in his blanket, with his head in the hollow of his upturned saddle; and Archie and Craig made speed to follow his example.
As for Craig, he was soon in the land of Nod. He was a true Bushman, and could go off sound as a bell the moment he stretched himself on his “downy bed,” as he called it.
But Archie felt the situation far too new to permit of slumber all at once. He had never lain out thus before; and the experience was so delightful to him that he felt justified in lying awake a bit, and looking at the stars. The distant dingoes began to howl, and more than once some great dark bird flew over the camp, high overhead, but on silent wings.
His thoughts wandered away over the thousands and thousands of miles that intervened between him and home, and he began to wonder what they were all doing at Burley; for it would be broad daylight there, and very likely his father was trudging over the moors, or through the stubbles. But dreams came and mingled with his waking thoughts at last, and were just usurping them all when he became conscious of the approach of stealthy footsteps.
He lay perfectly still, though his hand sought his ready revolver; for stories of black fellows stealing on out-sleeping travellers began to crowd through his mind, and being young to the Bush, he could not prevent that heart of his from throbbing uneasily and painfully against his ribs.
How did they brain people, he was wondering, with a boomerang or nullah? or was it not more common to spear them?
But, greatly to his relief, the figure immediately afterwards revealed itself in the person of one of the men, silently placing an armful of wood on the half-dying embers. Then he silently glided away again, and next minute Archie was wrapt in the elysium of forgetfulness.
The dews lay all about, glittering in the first beams of the sun, when he awoke, feeling somewhat cold and considerably stiff; but warm tea and a breakfast of wondrous solidity soon put him all to rights again.
Two nights after this the new stock was safe in the yards; and every evening before sundown, for many a day to come, they had to be “tailed,” and brought within the strong bars of the rendezvous.
Branding was the next business. This is no trifling matter with old cattle. With the calves indeed it is a bit troublesome at times, but the grown-up ones resent the adding of insult to injury. It is no uncommon thing for men to be severely injured during the operation. Nevertheless the agility displayed by the stockmen and their excessive coolness is marvellous to behold.
Most of those cattle were branded with a “B.H.,” which stood for Bob and Harry; but some were marked with the letters “A.B.,” for Archibald Broadbent, and—I need not hide the truth—Archie was a proud young man when he saw these marks. He realised now fully that he had commenced life in earnest, and was a squatter, not only in name, but in reality.
The fencing work and improvements still went gaily on, the ground being divided into immense paddocks, many of which our young farmers trusted to see ere long covered with waving grain.
The new herds soon got used to the country, and settled down on it, dividing themselves quietly into herds of their own making, that were found browsing together mornings and evenings in the best pastures, or gathered in mobs during the fierce heat of the middle-day.
Archie quickly enough acquired the craft of a cunning and bold stockman, and never seemed happier than when riding neck and neck with some runaway semi-wild bull, or riding in the midst of a mob, selecting the beast that was wanted. And at a job like the latter Tell and he appeared to be only one individual betwixt the two of them, like the fabled Centaur. He came to grief though once, while engaged heading a bull in as ugly a bit of country as any stockman ever rode over. It happened. Next chapter, please.
Chapter Twenty One.A Wild Adventure—Archie’s Pride Receives a Fall.It happened—I was going to say at the end of the other page—that in a few weeks’ time Mr Winslow paid his promised visit to Burley New Farm, as the three friends called it.Great preparations had been made beforehand because Etheldene was coming with her father, and was accompanied by a black maid. Both Etheldene and her maid had been accommodated with a dray, and when Sarah, with her cheeks like ripe cherries, and her eyes like sloes, showed the young lady to her bedroom, Etheldene was pleased to express her delight in no measured terms. She had not expected anything like this. Real mattresses, with real curtains, a real sofa, and real lace round the looking-glass.“It is almost too good for Bush-life,” said Etheldene; “but I am so pleased, Mrs Cooper; and everything is as clean and tidy as my own rooms in Sydney. Father, do come and see all this, and thank Mrs Cooper prettily.”Somewhat to Archie’s astonishment a horse was led round next morning for Etheldene, and she appeared in a pretty dark habit, and was helped into the saddle, and gathered up the reins, and looked as calm and self-possessed as a princess could have done.It was Gentleman Craig who was the groom, and a gallant one he made. For the life of him Archie could not help envying the man for his excessive coolness, and would have given half of his cattle—those with the bold “A.B.’s” on them—to have been only half as handsome.Never mind. Archie is soon mounted, and cantering away by the young lady’s side, and feeling so buoyant and happy all over that he would not have exchanged places with a king on a throne.“Oh, yes,” said Etheldene, laughing, as she replied to a question of Archie’s, “I know nearly everything about cattle, and sheep too! But,” she added, “I’m sure you are clever among them already.”Archie felt the blood mount to his forehead; but he took off his broad hat and bowed for the compliment, almost as prettily as Gentleman Craig could have done himself.Now, there is such a thing as being too clever, and it was trying to be clever that led poor Archie to grief that day.The young man was both proud and pleased to have an opportunity of showing Etheldene round the settlement, all the more so that there was to be a muster of the herds that day, and neighbour-squatters had come on horseback to assist. This was a kind of a love-darg which was very common in Queensland a few years ago, and probably is to this day.Archie pointed laughingly towards the stock whip Etheldene carried. He never for a moment imagined it was in the girl’s power to use or manage such an instrument.“That is a pretty toy, Miss Winslow,” he said.“Toy, do you call it, sir?” said this young Diana, pouting prettily. “It is only a lady’s whip, for the thong is but ten feet long. But listen.”It flew from her hands as she spoke, and the sound made every animal within hearing raise head and sniff the air.“Well,” said Archie, “I hope you won’t run into any danger.”“Oh,” she exclaimed, “danger is fun!” And she laughed right merrily, and looked as full of life and beauty as a bird in spring time.Etheldene was tall and well-developed for her age, for girls in this strange land very soon grow out of their childhood.Archie had called her Diana in his own mind, and before the day was over she certainly had given proof that she well merited the title.New herds had arrived, and had for one purpose or another to be headed into the stock yards. This is a task of no little difficulty, and to-day being warm these cattle appeared unusually fidgety. Twos and threes frequently stampeded from the mob, and went determinedly dashing back towards the creek and forest, so there was plenty of opportunities for anyone to show off his horsemanship. Once during a chase like this Archie was surprised to see Etheldene riding neck and neck for a time with a furious bull. He trembled for her safety as he dashed onwards to her assistance. But crack, crack, crack went the brave girl’s whip; she punished the runaway most unmercifully, and had succeeded in turning him ere her Northumbrian cavalier rode up. A moment more and the bull was tearing back towards the herd he had left, a stockman or two following close behind.“I was frightened for you,” said Archie.“Pray, don’t be so, Mr Broadbent. I don’t want to think myself a child, and I should not like you to think me one. Mind, I’ve been in the Bush all my life.”But there was more and greater occasion to be frightened for Etheldene ere the day was done. In fact, she ran so madly into danger, that the wonder is she escaped. She had a gallant, soft-mouthed horse—that was one thing to her advantage—and the girl had a gentle hand.But Archie drew rein himself, and held his breath with fear, to see a maddened animal, that she was pressing hard, turn wildly round and charge back on horse and rider with all the fury imaginable. A turn of the wrist of the bridle hand, one slight jerk of the fingers, and Etheldene’s horse had turned on a pivot, we might almost say, and the danger was over.So on the whole, instead of Archie having had a very grand opportunity for showing off his powers before this young Diana, it was rather the other way.The hunt ended satisfactory to both parties; and while Sarah was getting an extra good dinner ready, Archie proposed a canter “to give them an appetite.”“Have you got an appetite, Mr Broadbent? I have.”It was evident Etheldene was not too fine a lady to deny the possession of good health.“Yes,” said Archie; “to tell you the plain truth, I’m as hungry as a hunter. But it’ll do the nags good to stretch their legs after so much wheeling and swivelling.”So away they rode again, side by side, taking the blazed path towards the plains.“You are sure you can find your way back, I suppose?” said Etheldene.“I think so.”“It would be good fun to be lost.”“Would you really like to be?”“Oh, we would not be altogether, you know! We would find our way to some hut and eat damper, or to some grand hotel, I suppose, in the Bush, and father and Craig would soon find us.”“Father and you have known Craig long?”“Yes, many, many years. Poor fellow, it is quite a pity for him. Father says he was very clever at college, and is a Master of Arts of Cambridge.”“Well, he has taken his hogs to a nice market.”“But father would do a deal for him if he could trust him. He has told father over and over again that plenty of people would trust him if he could only trust himself.”“Poor man! So nice-looking too! They may well call him Gentleman Craig.”“But is it not time we were returning?”“Look! look!” she cried, before Archie could answer. “Yonder is a bull-fight. Whom does the little herd belong to?”“Not to us. We are far beyond even our pastures. We have cut away from them. This is a kind of no-man’s land, where we go shooting at times; and I daresay they are trespassers or wild cattle. Pity they cannot be tamed.”“They are of no use to anyone, I have heard father say, except to shoot. If they be introduced into a herd of stock cattle, they teach all the others mischief. But see how they fight! Is it not awful?”“Yes. Had we not better return? I do not think your father would like you to witness such sights as that.”The girl laughed lightly.“Oh,” she cried, “you don’t half know father yet! He trusts me everywhere. He is very, very good, though not so refined as some would have him to be.”The cows of this herd stood quietly by chewing their cuds, under the shade of a huge gum tree, while two red-eyed giant bulls struggled for mastery in the open.It was a curious fight, and a furious fight. At the time Archie and his companion came in sight of the conflict, they had closed, and were fencing with their horns with as much skill, apparently, as any two men armed with foils could have displayed. The main points to be gained appeared to be to unlock or get out of touch of each other’s horns long enough to stab in neck and shoulder, and during the time of being in touch to force back and gain ground. Once during this fight the younger bull backed his opponent right to the top of a slight hill. It was a supreme effort, and evidently made in the hope that he would hurl him from a height at the other side. But in this he was disappointed; for the top was level, and the older one, regaining strength, hurled his enemy down the hill again far more quickly than he had come up. Round and round, and from side to side, the battle raged, till at long last the courage and strength of one failed completely. He suffered himself to be backed, and it was evident was only waiting an opportunity to escape uncut and unscathed. This came at length, and he turned and, with a cry of rage, dashed madly away to the forest. The battle now became a chase, and the whole herd, holloaing good luck to the victor, joined in it.As there was no more to be seen, Archie and Etheldene turned their horses’ heads homewards.They had not ridden far, however, before the vanquished bull himself hove in sight. He was alone now, though still tearing off in a panic, and moaning low and angrily to himself.It was at this moment that what Archie considered a happy inspiration took possession of our impulsive hero.“Let us wait till he passes,” he said, “and drive him before us to camp.”Easily said. But how was it to be done?They drew back within the shadow of a tree, and the bull rushed past. Then out pranced knight Archie, cracking his stock whip.The monster paused, and wheeling round tore up the ground with his hoofs in a perfect agony of anger.“What next?” he seemed to say to himself. “It is bad enough to be beaten before the herd; but I will have my revenge now.”The brute’s roaring now was like the sound of a gong, hollow and ringing, but dreadful to listen to.Archie met him boldly enough, intending to cut him in the face as he dashed past. In his excitement he dug his spurs into Tell, and next minute he was on the ground. The bull rushed by, but speedily wheeled, and came tearing back, sure now of blood in which to dip his ugly hoofs.Archie had scrambled up, and was near a tree when the infuriated beast came down on the charge. Even at this moment of supreme danger Archie—he remembered this afterwards—could not help admiring the excessively business-like way the animal came at him to break him up. There was a terrible earnestness and a terrible satisfaction in his face or eyes; call it what you like, there it was.Near as Archie was to the tree, to reach and get round it was impossible. He made a movement to get at his revolver; but it was too late to draw and fire, so at once he threw himself flat on the ground. The bull rushed over him, and came into collision with the tree trunk. This confused him for a second or two, and Archie had time to regain his feet. He looked wildly about for his horse. Tell was quietly looking on; he seemed to be waiting for his young master. But Archie never would have reached the horse alive had not brave Etheldene’s whip not been flicked with painful force across the bull’s eyes. That blow saved Archie, though the girl’s horse was wounded on the flank.A minute after both were galloping speedily across the plain, all danger over; for the bull was still rooting around the tree, apparently thinking that his tormentors had vanished through the earth.“How best can I thank you?” Archie was saying.“By saying nothing about it,” was Etheldene’s answer.“But you have saved my life, child.”“A mere bagatelle, as father says,” said this saucy Queensland maiden, with an arch look at her companion. But Archie did not look arch as he put the next question.“Which do you mean is the bagatelle, Etheldene, my life, or the saving of it?”“Yes, you may call me Etheldene—father’s friends do—but don’t, please, call me child again.”“I beg your pardon, Etheldene.”“It is granted, sir.”“But now you haven’t answered my question.”“What was it? I’m so stupid!”“Which did you mean was the bagatelle—my life, or the saving of it?”“Oh, both!”“Thank you.”“I wish I could save Gentleman Craig’s life,” she added, looking thoughtful and earnest all in a moment.“Bother Gentleman Craig!” thought Archie; but he was not rude enough to say so.“Why?” he asked.“Because he once saved mine. That was when I was lost in the Bush, you know. He will tell you some day—I will ask him to. He is very proud though, and does not like to talk very much about himself.”Archie was silent for a short time. Why, he was wondering to himself, did it make him wretched—as it certainly had done—to have Etheldene look upon his life and the saving of it as a mere bagatelle. Why should she not? Still the thought was far from pleasant. Perhaps, if he had been killed outright, she would have ridden home and reported his death in the freest and easiest manner, and the accident would not have spoiled her dinner. The girl could have no feeling; and yet he had destined her, in his own mind, to be Rupert’s wife. She was unworthy of so great an honour. It should never happen if he could prevent it. Suddenly it occurred to him to ask her what a bagatelle was.“A bagatelle?” she replied. “Oh, about a thousand pounds. Father always speaks of a thousand pounds as a mere bagatelle.”Archie laughed aloud—he could not help it; but Etheldene looked merrily at him as she remarked quietly, “You wouldn’t laugh if you knew what I know.”“Indeed! What is it?”“We are both lost!”“Goodness forbid!”“You won’t have grace to say to-day—there will be no dinner; that’s always the worst of being lost.”Archie looked around him. There was not a blazed tree to be seen, and he never remembered having been in the country before in which they now rode.“We cannot be far out,” he said, “and I believe we are riding straight for the creek.”“So do I, and that is one reason why we are both sure to be wrong. It’s great fun, isn’t it?”“I don’t think so. We’re in an ugly fix. I really thought I was a better Bushman than I am.”Poor Archie! His pride had received quite a series of ugly falls since morning, but this was the worst come last. He felt a very crestfallen cavalier indeed.It did not tend to raise his spirits a bit to be told that if Gentleman Craig were here, he would find the blazed-tree line in a very short time.But things took a more cheerful aspect when out from a clump of trees rode a rough-looking stockman, mounted on a sackful of bones in the shape of an aged white horse.He stopped right in front of them.“Hillo, younkers! Whither away? Can’t be sundowners, sure-ly!”“No,” said Archie; “we are not sundowners. We are riding straight home to Burley New Farm.”“’Xcuse me for contradicting you flat, my boy. It strikes me ye ain’t boss o’ the sitivation. Feel a kind o’ bushed, don’t ye?”Archie was fain to confess it.“Well, I know the tracks, and if ye stump it along o’ me, ye won’t have to play at babes o’ the wood to-night.”They did “stump it along o’ him,” and before very long found themselves in the farm pasture lands.They met Craig coming, tearing along on his big horse, and glad he was to see them.“Oh, Craig,” cried Etheldene, “we’ve been having such fun, and been bushed, and everything!”“I found this ’ere young gent a-bolting with this ’ere young lady,” said their guide, whom Craig knew and addressed by the name of Hurricane Bill.“A runaway match, eh? Now, who was in the fault? But I think I know. Let me give you a bit of advice, sir. Never trust yourself far in the Bush with Miss Ethie. She doesn’t mind a bit being lost, and I can’t be always after her. Well, dinner is getting cold.”“Did you wait for us?” said Etheldene.“Not quite unanimously, Miss Ethie. It was like this: Mr Cooper and Mr Harry waited for you, and your father waited for Mr Broadbent. It comes to the same thing in the end, you know.”“Yes,” said Etheldene, “and it’s funny.”“What did you come for, Bill? Your horse looks a bit jaded.”“To invite you all to the hunt. Findlayson’s compliments, and all that genteel nonsense; and come as many as can. Why, the kangaroos, drat ’em, are eating us up. What with them and the dingoes we’ve been having fine times, I can tell ye!”“Well, it seems to me, Bill, your master is always in trouble. Last year it was the blacks, the year before he was visited by bushrangers, wasn’t he?”“Ye-es. Fact is we’re a bit too far north, and a little too much out west, and so everything gets at us like.”“And when is the hunt?”“Soon’s we can gather.”“I’m going for one,” said Etheldene.“Whatyou, Miss?” said Hurricane Bill. “You’re most too young, ain’t ye?”The girl did not condescend to answer him.“Come, sir, we’ll ride on,” she said to Archie.And away they flew.“Depend upon it, Bill, if she says she is going, go she will, and there’s an end of it.”“Humph!” That was Bill’s reply. He always admitted he had “no great fancy for womenfolks.”
It happened—I was going to say at the end of the other page—that in a few weeks’ time Mr Winslow paid his promised visit to Burley New Farm, as the three friends called it.
Great preparations had been made beforehand because Etheldene was coming with her father, and was accompanied by a black maid. Both Etheldene and her maid had been accommodated with a dray, and when Sarah, with her cheeks like ripe cherries, and her eyes like sloes, showed the young lady to her bedroom, Etheldene was pleased to express her delight in no measured terms. She had not expected anything like this. Real mattresses, with real curtains, a real sofa, and real lace round the looking-glass.
“It is almost too good for Bush-life,” said Etheldene; “but I am so pleased, Mrs Cooper; and everything is as clean and tidy as my own rooms in Sydney. Father, do come and see all this, and thank Mrs Cooper prettily.”
Somewhat to Archie’s astonishment a horse was led round next morning for Etheldene, and she appeared in a pretty dark habit, and was helped into the saddle, and gathered up the reins, and looked as calm and self-possessed as a princess could have done.
It was Gentleman Craig who was the groom, and a gallant one he made. For the life of him Archie could not help envying the man for his excessive coolness, and would have given half of his cattle—those with the bold “A.B.’s” on them—to have been only half as handsome.
Never mind. Archie is soon mounted, and cantering away by the young lady’s side, and feeling so buoyant and happy all over that he would not have exchanged places with a king on a throne.
“Oh, yes,” said Etheldene, laughing, as she replied to a question of Archie’s, “I know nearly everything about cattle, and sheep too! But,” she added, “I’m sure you are clever among them already.”
Archie felt the blood mount to his forehead; but he took off his broad hat and bowed for the compliment, almost as prettily as Gentleman Craig could have done himself.
Now, there is such a thing as being too clever, and it was trying to be clever that led poor Archie to grief that day.
The young man was both proud and pleased to have an opportunity of showing Etheldene round the settlement, all the more so that there was to be a muster of the herds that day, and neighbour-squatters had come on horseback to assist. This was a kind of a love-darg which was very common in Queensland a few years ago, and probably is to this day.
Archie pointed laughingly towards the stock whip Etheldene carried. He never for a moment imagined it was in the girl’s power to use or manage such an instrument.
“That is a pretty toy, Miss Winslow,” he said.
“Toy, do you call it, sir?” said this young Diana, pouting prettily. “It is only a lady’s whip, for the thong is but ten feet long. But listen.”
It flew from her hands as she spoke, and the sound made every animal within hearing raise head and sniff the air.
“Well,” said Archie, “I hope you won’t run into any danger.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “danger is fun!” And she laughed right merrily, and looked as full of life and beauty as a bird in spring time.
Etheldene was tall and well-developed for her age, for girls in this strange land very soon grow out of their childhood.
Archie had called her Diana in his own mind, and before the day was over she certainly had given proof that she well merited the title.
New herds had arrived, and had for one purpose or another to be headed into the stock yards. This is a task of no little difficulty, and to-day being warm these cattle appeared unusually fidgety. Twos and threes frequently stampeded from the mob, and went determinedly dashing back towards the creek and forest, so there was plenty of opportunities for anyone to show off his horsemanship. Once during a chase like this Archie was surprised to see Etheldene riding neck and neck for a time with a furious bull. He trembled for her safety as he dashed onwards to her assistance. But crack, crack, crack went the brave girl’s whip; she punished the runaway most unmercifully, and had succeeded in turning him ere her Northumbrian cavalier rode up. A moment more and the bull was tearing back towards the herd he had left, a stockman or two following close behind.
“I was frightened for you,” said Archie.
“Pray, don’t be so, Mr Broadbent. I don’t want to think myself a child, and I should not like you to think me one. Mind, I’ve been in the Bush all my life.”
But there was more and greater occasion to be frightened for Etheldene ere the day was done. In fact, she ran so madly into danger, that the wonder is she escaped. She had a gallant, soft-mouthed horse—that was one thing to her advantage—and the girl had a gentle hand.
But Archie drew rein himself, and held his breath with fear, to see a maddened animal, that she was pressing hard, turn wildly round and charge back on horse and rider with all the fury imaginable. A turn of the wrist of the bridle hand, one slight jerk of the fingers, and Etheldene’s horse had turned on a pivot, we might almost say, and the danger was over.
So on the whole, instead of Archie having had a very grand opportunity for showing off his powers before this young Diana, it was rather the other way.
The hunt ended satisfactory to both parties; and while Sarah was getting an extra good dinner ready, Archie proposed a canter “to give them an appetite.”
“Have you got an appetite, Mr Broadbent? I have.”
It was evident Etheldene was not too fine a lady to deny the possession of good health.
“Yes,” said Archie; “to tell you the plain truth, I’m as hungry as a hunter. But it’ll do the nags good to stretch their legs after so much wheeling and swivelling.”
So away they rode again, side by side, taking the blazed path towards the plains.
“You are sure you can find your way back, I suppose?” said Etheldene.
“I think so.”
“It would be good fun to be lost.”
“Would you really like to be?”
“Oh, we would not be altogether, you know! We would find our way to some hut and eat damper, or to some grand hotel, I suppose, in the Bush, and father and Craig would soon find us.”
“Father and you have known Craig long?”
“Yes, many, many years. Poor fellow, it is quite a pity for him. Father says he was very clever at college, and is a Master of Arts of Cambridge.”
“Well, he has taken his hogs to a nice market.”
“But father would do a deal for him if he could trust him. He has told father over and over again that plenty of people would trust him if he could only trust himself.”
“Poor man! So nice-looking too! They may well call him Gentleman Craig.”
“But is it not time we were returning?”
“Look! look!” she cried, before Archie could answer. “Yonder is a bull-fight. Whom does the little herd belong to?”
“Not to us. We are far beyond even our pastures. We have cut away from them. This is a kind of no-man’s land, where we go shooting at times; and I daresay they are trespassers or wild cattle. Pity they cannot be tamed.”
“They are of no use to anyone, I have heard father say, except to shoot. If they be introduced into a herd of stock cattle, they teach all the others mischief. But see how they fight! Is it not awful?”
“Yes. Had we not better return? I do not think your father would like you to witness such sights as that.”
The girl laughed lightly.
“Oh,” she cried, “you don’t half know father yet! He trusts me everywhere. He is very, very good, though not so refined as some would have him to be.”
The cows of this herd stood quietly by chewing their cuds, under the shade of a huge gum tree, while two red-eyed giant bulls struggled for mastery in the open.
It was a curious fight, and a furious fight. At the time Archie and his companion came in sight of the conflict, they had closed, and were fencing with their horns with as much skill, apparently, as any two men armed with foils could have displayed. The main points to be gained appeared to be to unlock or get out of touch of each other’s horns long enough to stab in neck and shoulder, and during the time of being in touch to force back and gain ground. Once during this fight the younger bull backed his opponent right to the top of a slight hill. It was a supreme effort, and evidently made in the hope that he would hurl him from a height at the other side. But in this he was disappointed; for the top was level, and the older one, regaining strength, hurled his enemy down the hill again far more quickly than he had come up. Round and round, and from side to side, the battle raged, till at long last the courage and strength of one failed completely. He suffered himself to be backed, and it was evident was only waiting an opportunity to escape uncut and unscathed. This came at length, and he turned and, with a cry of rage, dashed madly away to the forest. The battle now became a chase, and the whole herd, holloaing good luck to the victor, joined in it.
As there was no more to be seen, Archie and Etheldene turned their horses’ heads homewards.
They had not ridden far, however, before the vanquished bull himself hove in sight. He was alone now, though still tearing off in a panic, and moaning low and angrily to himself.
It was at this moment that what Archie considered a happy inspiration took possession of our impulsive hero.
“Let us wait till he passes,” he said, “and drive him before us to camp.”
Easily said. But how was it to be done?
They drew back within the shadow of a tree, and the bull rushed past. Then out pranced knight Archie, cracking his stock whip.
The monster paused, and wheeling round tore up the ground with his hoofs in a perfect agony of anger.
“What next?” he seemed to say to himself. “It is bad enough to be beaten before the herd; but I will have my revenge now.”
The brute’s roaring now was like the sound of a gong, hollow and ringing, but dreadful to listen to.
Archie met him boldly enough, intending to cut him in the face as he dashed past. In his excitement he dug his spurs into Tell, and next minute he was on the ground. The bull rushed by, but speedily wheeled, and came tearing back, sure now of blood in which to dip his ugly hoofs.
Archie had scrambled up, and was near a tree when the infuriated beast came down on the charge. Even at this moment of supreme danger Archie—he remembered this afterwards—could not help admiring the excessively business-like way the animal came at him to break him up. There was a terrible earnestness and a terrible satisfaction in his face or eyes; call it what you like, there it was.
Near as Archie was to the tree, to reach and get round it was impossible. He made a movement to get at his revolver; but it was too late to draw and fire, so at once he threw himself flat on the ground. The bull rushed over him, and came into collision with the tree trunk. This confused him for a second or two, and Archie had time to regain his feet. He looked wildly about for his horse. Tell was quietly looking on; he seemed to be waiting for his young master. But Archie never would have reached the horse alive had not brave Etheldene’s whip not been flicked with painful force across the bull’s eyes. That blow saved Archie, though the girl’s horse was wounded on the flank.
A minute after both were galloping speedily across the plain, all danger over; for the bull was still rooting around the tree, apparently thinking that his tormentors had vanished through the earth.
“How best can I thank you?” Archie was saying.
“By saying nothing about it,” was Etheldene’s answer.
“But you have saved my life, child.”
“A mere bagatelle, as father says,” said this saucy Queensland maiden, with an arch look at her companion. But Archie did not look arch as he put the next question.
“Which do you mean is the bagatelle, Etheldene, my life, or the saving of it?”
“Yes, you may call me Etheldene—father’s friends do—but don’t, please, call me child again.”
“I beg your pardon, Etheldene.”
“It is granted, sir.”
“But now you haven’t answered my question.”
“What was it? I’m so stupid!”
“Which did you mean was the bagatelle—my life, or the saving of it?”
“Oh, both!”
“Thank you.”
“I wish I could save Gentleman Craig’s life,” she added, looking thoughtful and earnest all in a moment.
“Bother Gentleman Craig!” thought Archie; but he was not rude enough to say so.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because he once saved mine. That was when I was lost in the Bush, you know. He will tell you some day—I will ask him to. He is very proud though, and does not like to talk very much about himself.”
Archie was silent for a short time. Why, he was wondering to himself, did it make him wretched—as it certainly had done—to have Etheldene look upon his life and the saving of it as a mere bagatelle. Why should she not? Still the thought was far from pleasant. Perhaps, if he had been killed outright, she would have ridden home and reported his death in the freest and easiest manner, and the accident would not have spoiled her dinner. The girl could have no feeling; and yet he had destined her, in his own mind, to be Rupert’s wife. She was unworthy of so great an honour. It should never happen if he could prevent it. Suddenly it occurred to him to ask her what a bagatelle was.
“A bagatelle?” she replied. “Oh, about a thousand pounds. Father always speaks of a thousand pounds as a mere bagatelle.”
Archie laughed aloud—he could not help it; but Etheldene looked merrily at him as she remarked quietly, “You wouldn’t laugh if you knew what I know.”
“Indeed! What is it?”
“We are both lost!”
“Goodness forbid!”
“You won’t have grace to say to-day—there will be no dinner; that’s always the worst of being lost.”
Archie looked around him. There was not a blazed tree to be seen, and he never remembered having been in the country before in which they now rode.
“We cannot be far out,” he said, “and I believe we are riding straight for the creek.”
“So do I, and that is one reason why we are both sure to be wrong. It’s great fun, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so. We’re in an ugly fix. I really thought I was a better Bushman than I am.”
Poor Archie! His pride had received quite a series of ugly falls since morning, but this was the worst come last. He felt a very crestfallen cavalier indeed.
It did not tend to raise his spirits a bit to be told that if Gentleman Craig were here, he would find the blazed-tree line in a very short time.
But things took a more cheerful aspect when out from a clump of trees rode a rough-looking stockman, mounted on a sackful of bones in the shape of an aged white horse.
He stopped right in front of them.
“Hillo, younkers! Whither away? Can’t be sundowners, sure-ly!”
“No,” said Archie; “we are not sundowners. We are riding straight home to Burley New Farm.”
“’Xcuse me for contradicting you flat, my boy. It strikes me ye ain’t boss o’ the sitivation. Feel a kind o’ bushed, don’t ye?”
Archie was fain to confess it.
“Well, I know the tracks, and if ye stump it along o’ me, ye won’t have to play at babes o’ the wood to-night.”
They did “stump it along o’ him,” and before very long found themselves in the farm pasture lands.
They met Craig coming, tearing along on his big horse, and glad he was to see them.
“Oh, Craig,” cried Etheldene, “we’ve been having such fun, and been bushed, and everything!”
“I found this ’ere young gent a-bolting with this ’ere young lady,” said their guide, whom Craig knew and addressed by the name of Hurricane Bill.
“A runaway match, eh? Now, who was in the fault? But I think I know. Let me give you a bit of advice, sir. Never trust yourself far in the Bush with Miss Ethie. She doesn’t mind a bit being lost, and I can’t be always after her. Well, dinner is getting cold.”
“Did you wait for us?” said Etheldene.
“Not quite unanimously, Miss Ethie. It was like this: Mr Cooper and Mr Harry waited for you, and your father waited for Mr Broadbent. It comes to the same thing in the end, you know.”
“Yes,” said Etheldene, “and it’s funny.”
“What did you come for, Bill? Your horse looks a bit jaded.”
“To invite you all to the hunt. Findlayson’s compliments, and all that genteel nonsense; and come as many as can. Why, the kangaroos, drat ’em, are eating us up. What with them and the dingoes we’ve been having fine times, I can tell ye!”
“Well, it seems to me, Bill, your master is always in trouble. Last year it was the blacks, the year before he was visited by bushrangers, wasn’t he?”
“Ye-es. Fact is we’re a bit too far north, and a little too much out west, and so everything gets at us like.”
“And when is the hunt?”
“Soon’s we can gather.”
“I’m going for one,” said Etheldene.
“Whatyou, Miss?” said Hurricane Bill. “You’re most too young, ain’t ye?”
The girl did not condescend to answer him.
“Come, sir, we’ll ride on,” she said to Archie.
And away they flew.
“Depend upon it, Bill, if she says she is going, go she will, and there’s an end of it.”
“Humph!” That was Bill’s reply. He always admitted he had “no great fancy for womenfolks.”
Chapter Twenty Two.Round the Log Fire—Hurricane Bill and the Tiger-Snake—Gentleman Craig’s Resolve.Kangaroo driving or hunting is one of the wild sports of Australia, though I have heard it doubted whether there was any real sport in it. It is extremely exciting, and never much more dangerous than a ride after the hounds at home in a rough country.It really does seem little short of murder, however, to surround the animals and slay them wholesale; only, be it remembered, they are extremely hard upon the herbage. It has been said that a kangaroo will eat as much as two sheep; whether this be true or not, these animals must be kept down, or they will keep the squatter down. Every other species of wild animal disappears before man, but kangaroos appear to imagine that human beings were sent into the bush to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, and that both blades belong to them.The only people from Burley New Farm who went to the Findlayson kangaroo drive were Harry, Archie, and Etheldene, and Craig to look after her. Me. Winslow stopped at home with Bob, to give him advice and suggest improvements; for he well knew his daughter would be safe with Gentleman Craig.It was a long ride, however, and one night was to be spent in camp; but as there was nothing to do, and nothing in the shape of cattle or sheep to look after, it was rather jolly than otherwise. They found a delightful spot near a clear pool and close by the forest to make their pitch on for the night.Hurricane Bill was the active party on this occasion; he found wood with the help of Harry, and enough of it to last till the morning. The beauty, or one of the beauties, of the climate in this part of Australia is, that with the sun the thermometer sinks, and the later spring and even summer nights are very pleasant indeed.When supper was finished, and tea, that safest and best of stimulants, had been discussed, talking became general; everybody was in good spirits in the expectation of some fun on the morrow; for a longish ride through the depth of that gloomy forest would bring them to the plain and to Findlayson’s in time for a second breakfast.Hurricane Bill told many a strange story of Australian life, but all in the way of conversation; for Bill was a shy kind of man, and wanted a good deal of drawing-out, as the dog said about the badger.Archie gave his experiences of hunting in England, and of shooting and fishing and country adventure generally in that far-off land, and he had no more earnest listener than Etheldene. To her England was the land of romance. Young though she was, she had read the most of Walter Scott’s novels, and had an idea that England and Scotland were still peopled as we find these countries described by the great wizard, and she did not wish to be disillusioned. The very mention of the word “castle,” or “ruin,” or “coat of mail,” brought fancies and pictures into her mind that she would not have had blotted out on any account.Over and over again, many a day and many a time, she had made Archie describe to her every room in the old farm; and his turret chamber high up above the tall-spreading elm trees, where the rooks built and cawed in spring, and through which the wild winds of winter moaned and soughed when the leaves had fallen, was to Etheldene a veritable room in fairyland.“Oh,” she said to-night, “how I should love it all! I do want to go to England, and I’ll make father take me just once before I die.”“Before ye die, miss!” said Hurricane Bill. “Why it is funny to hear the likes o’ you, with all the world before ye, talkin’ about dying.”Well, by-and-by London was mentioned, and then it was Harry’s turn. He was by no means sorry to have something to say.“Shall I describe to you, Miss Winslow,” he said, “some of the wild sights of Whitechapel?”“Is it a dreadfully wild place, Mr Brown?”“It is rather; eh, Johnnie?”“I don’t know much about it, Harry.”“Well, there are slums near by there, miss, that no man with a black coat and an umbrella dare enter in daylight owing to the wild beasts. Then there are peelers.”“What are peelers? Monkeys?”“Yes, miss; they are a sort of monkeys—blue monkeys—and carry sticks same as the real African ourang-outangs do. And can’t they use them too!”“Are they very ugly?”“Awful, and venomous too; and at night they have one eye that shines in the dark like a wild cat’s, and you’ve got to stand clear when that eye’s on you.”“Well,” said Etheldene, “I wouldn’t like to be lost in a place like that. I’d rather be bushed where I am. But I think, Mr Brown, you are laughing at me. Are there any snakes in Whitechapel?”“No, thank goodness; no, miss. I can’t stand snakes much.”“There was a pretty tiger crept past you just as I was talking though,” she said with great coolness.Harry jumped and shook himself. Etheldene laughed.“It is far enough away by this time,” she remarked. “I saw something ripple past you, Harry, like a whip-thong. I thought my eyes had made it.”“You brought it along with the wood perhaps,” said Craig quietly.“’Pon my word,” cried Harry, “you’re a lot of Job’s comforters, all of you. D’ye know I won’t sleep one blessed wink to-night. I’ll fancy every moment there is a snake in my blanket or under the saddle.”“They won’t come near you, Mr Brown,” said Craig. “They keep as far away from Englishmen as possible.”“Not always,” said Bill. “Maybe ye wouldn’t believe it, but I was bitten and well-nigh dead, and it was a tiger as done it. And if I ain’t English, then there ain’t an Englishman ’twixt ’ere and Melbourne. See that, miss?” He held up a hand in the firelight as he spoke.“Why,” said Etheldene, “you don’t mean to say the snake bit off half your little finger?”“Not much I don’t; but he bit meonthe finger, miss. I was a swagsman then, and was gathering wood, as we were to-night, when I got nipped, and my chum tightened a morsel of string round it to keep the poison away from the heart, then he laid the finger on a stone and chopped it off with his spade. Fact what I’m telling you. But the poison got in the blood somehow all the same. They half carried me to Irish Charlie’s hotel. Lucky, that wasn’t far off. Then they stuck the whiskey into me.”“Did the whiskey kill the poison?” said Archie.“Whiskey kill the poison! Why, young sir, Charlie’s whiskey would have killed a kangaroo! But nothing warmed me that night; my blood felt frozen. Well, sleep came at last, and, oh, the dreams! ’Twere worse ten thousand times than being wi’ Daniel in the den o’ lions. Next day nobody hardly knew me; I was blue and wrinkled. I had aged ten years in a single night.”“I say,” said Harry, “suppose we change the subject.”“And I say,” said Craig, “suppose we make the beds.”He got up as he spoke, and began to busy himself in preparations for Etheldene’s couch. It was easily and simply arranged, but the arrangement nevertheless showed considerable forethought.He disappeared for a few minutes, and returned laden with all the necessary paraphernalia. A seven-foot pole was fastened to a tree; the other end supported by a forked stick, which he sharpened and drove into the ground. Some grass was spread beneath the pole, a blanket thrown carefully over it, the upturned saddle put down for a pillow, and a tent formed by throwing over the pole a loose piece of canvas that he had taken from his saddle-bow, weighted down by some stones, and the whole was complete.“Now, Baby,” said Craig, handing Etheldene a warm rug, “will you be pleased to retire?”“Where is my flat candlestick?” she answered. Gentleman Craig pointed to the Southern Cross. “Yonder,” he said. “Is it not a lovely one?”“It puts me in mind of old, old times,” said Etheldene with a sigh. “And you’re calling me ‘Baby’ too. Do you remember, ever so long ago in the Bush, when I was a baby in downright earnest, how you used to sing a lullaby to me outside my wee tent?”“If you go to bed, and don’t speak any more, I may do so again.”“Good-night then. Sound sleep to everybody. What fun!” Then Baby disappeared.Craig sat himself down near the tent, after replenishing the fire—he was to keep the first watch, then Bill would come on duty—and at once began to sing, or rather ‘croon’ over, an old, old song. His voice was rich and sweet, and though he sang low it could be heard distinctly enough by all, and it mingled almost mournfully with the soughing of the wind through the tall trees.“My song is rather a sorrowful ditty,” he had half-whispered to Archie before he began; “but it is poor Miss Ethie’s favourite.” But long before Craig had finished no one around the log fire was awake but himself.He looked to his rifle and revolvers, placed them handy in case of an attack by blacks, then once more sat down, leaning his back against a tree and giving way to thought.Not over pleasant thoughts were those of Gentleman Craig’s, as might have been guessed from his frequent sighs as he gazed earnestly into the fire.What did he see in the fire?Tableauxof his past life? Perhaps or perhaps not. At all events they could not have been very inspiriting ones. No one could have started in life with better prospects than he had done; but he carried with him wherever he went his own fearful enemy, something that would not leave him alone, but was ever, ever urging him to drink. Even as a student he had been what was called “a jolly fellow,” and his friendship was appreciated by scores who knew him. He loved to be considered the life and soul of a company. It was an honour dearer to him than anything else; but deeply, dearly had he paid for it.By this time he might have been honoured and respected in his own country, for he was undoubtedly clever; but he had lost himself, and lost all that made life dear—his beautiful, queenly mother. He would never see her more. She wasdead, yet the memory of the love she bore him was still the one, the only ray of sunshine left in his soul.And he had come out here to Australia determined to turn over a new leaf. Alas! he had not done so.“Oh, what a fool I have been!” he said in his thoughts, clenching his lists until the nails almost cut the palms.He started up now and went wandering away towards the trees. There was nothing that could hurt him there. He felt powerful enough to grapple with a dozen blacks, but none were in his thoughts; and, indeed, none were in the forest.He could talk aloud now, as he walked rapidly up and down past the weird grey trunks of the gum trees.“My foolish pride has been my curse,” he said bitterly. “But should I allow it to be so? The thing lies in a nutshell I have never yet had the courage to say, ‘I will not touch the hateful firewater, because I cannot control myself if I do.’ If I take but one glass I arouse within me the dormant fiend, and he takes possession of my soul, and rules all my actions until sickness ends my carousal, and I am left weak as a child in soul and body. If I were not too proud to say those words to my fellow-beings, if I were not afraid of being laughed at as acoward! Ah, that’s it! It is too hard to bear! Shall I face it? Shall I own myself a coward in this one thing? I seem compelled to answer myself, to answer my own soul. Or is it my dead mother’s spirit speaking through my heart? Oh, if I thought so I—I—”Here the strong man broke down. He knelt beside a tree trunk and sobbed like a boy. Then he prayed; and when he got up from his knees he was calm. He extended one hand towards the stars.“Mother,” he said, “by God’s help I shall be free.”When the morning broke pale and golden over the eastern hills, and the laughing jackasses came round to smile terribly loud and terribly chaffingly at the white men’s preparation for their simple breakfast, Craig moved about without a single trace of his last night’s sorrow. He was busy looking after the horses when Etheldene came bounding towards him with both hands extended, so frank and free and beautiful that as he took hold of them he could not help saying:“You look as fresh as a fern this morning, Baby.”“Not so green, Craig. Say ‘Not so green.’”“No, not so green. But really to look at you brings a great big wave of joy surging all over my heart. But to descend from romance to common-sense. I hope you are hungry? I have just been seeing to your horse. Where do you think I found him?”“I couldn’t guess.”“Why in the water down yonder. Lying down and wallowing.”“The naughty horse! Ah, here come the others! Good morning all.”“We have been bathing,” said Archie. “Oh, how delicious!”“Yes,” said Harry; “Johnnie and I were bathing down under the trees, and it really was a treat to see how quickly he came to bank when I told him there was an alligator taking stock.”“We scared the ducks though. Pity we didn’t bring our guns and bag a few.”“I believe we’ll have a right good breakfast at Findlayson’s,” said Craig; “so I propose we now have a mouthful of something and start.”The gloom of that deep forest became irksome at last; though some of its trees were wondrous to behold in their stately straightness and immensity of size, the trunks of others were bent and crooked into such weird forms of contortion, that they positively looked uncanny.Referring to these, Archie remarked to Craig, who was riding by his side:“Are they not grotesquely beautiful?”Craig laughed lightly.“Their grotesqueness is apparent anyhow,” he replied. “But would you believe it, in this very forest I was a week mad?”“Mad!”“Yes; worse than mad—delirious. Oh, I did not run about, I was too feeble! but a black woman or girl found me, and built a kind of bark gunja over me, for it rained part of the time and dripped the rest. And those trees with their bent and gnarled stems walked about me, and gibbered and laughed, and pointed crooked fingers at me. I can afford to smile at it now, but it was very dreadful then; and the worst of it was I had brought it all on myself.”Archie was silent.“You know in what way?” added Craig.“I have been told,” Archie said, simply and sadly.“For weeks, Mr Broadbent, after I was able to walk, I remained among the blacks doing nothing, just wandering aimlessly from place to place; but the woods and the trees looked no longer weird and awful to me then, for I was in my right mind. It was spring—nay, but early summer—and I could feel and drink in all the gorgeous beauty of foliage, of tree flowers and wild flowers, nodding palms and feathery ferns; but, oh! I left and went south again; I met once more the white man, and forgot all the religion of Nature in which my soul had for a time been steeped. So that is all a kind of confession. I feel the better for having made it. We are all poor, weak mortals at the best; only I made a resolve last night.”“You did?”“Yes; and I am going to keep it. I am going to have help.”“Help!”“Yes, from Him who made those stately giants of the forest and changed their stems to silvery white. He can change all things.”“Amen!” said Archie solemnly.
Kangaroo driving or hunting is one of the wild sports of Australia, though I have heard it doubted whether there was any real sport in it. It is extremely exciting, and never much more dangerous than a ride after the hounds at home in a rough country.
It really does seem little short of murder, however, to surround the animals and slay them wholesale; only, be it remembered, they are extremely hard upon the herbage. It has been said that a kangaroo will eat as much as two sheep; whether this be true or not, these animals must be kept down, or they will keep the squatter down. Every other species of wild animal disappears before man, but kangaroos appear to imagine that human beings were sent into the bush to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, and that both blades belong to them.
The only people from Burley New Farm who went to the Findlayson kangaroo drive were Harry, Archie, and Etheldene, and Craig to look after her. Me. Winslow stopped at home with Bob, to give him advice and suggest improvements; for he well knew his daughter would be safe with Gentleman Craig.
It was a long ride, however, and one night was to be spent in camp; but as there was nothing to do, and nothing in the shape of cattle or sheep to look after, it was rather jolly than otherwise. They found a delightful spot near a clear pool and close by the forest to make their pitch on for the night.
Hurricane Bill was the active party on this occasion; he found wood with the help of Harry, and enough of it to last till the morning. The beauty, or one of the beauties, of the climate in this part of Australia is, that with the sun the thermometer sinks, and the later spring and even summer nights are very pleasant indeed.
When supper was finished, and tea, that safest and best of stimulants, had been discussed, talking became general; everybody was in good spirits in the expectation of some fun on the morrow; for a longish ride through the depth of that gloomy forest would bring them to the plain and to Findlayson’s in time for a second breakfast.
Hurricane Bill told many a strange story of Australian life, but all in the way of conversation; for Bill was a shy kind of man, and wanted a good deal of drawing-out, as the dog said about the badger.
Archie gave his experiences of hunting in England, and of shooting and fishing and country adventure generally in that far-off land, and he had no more earnest listener than Etheldene. To her England was the land of romance. Young though she was, she had read the most of Walter Scott’s novels, and had an idea that England and Scotland were still peopled as we find these countries described by the great wizard, and she did not wish to be disillusioned. The very mention of the word “castle,” or “ruin,” or “coat of mail,” brought fancies and pictures into her mind that she would not have had blotted out on any account.
Over and over again, many a day and many a time, she had made Archie describe to her every room in the old farm; and his turret chamber high up above the tall-spreading elm trees, where the rooks built and cawed in spring, and through which the wild winds of winter moaned and soughed when the leaves had fallen, was to Etheldene a veritable room in fairyland.
“Oh,” she said to-night, “how I should love it all! I do want to go to England, and I’ll make father take me just once before I die.”
“Before ye die, miss!” said Hurricane Bill. “Why it is funny to hear the likes o’ you, with all the world before ye, talkin’ about dying.”
Well, by-and-by London was mentioned, and then it was Harry’s turn. He was by no means sorry to have something to say.
“Shall I describe to you, Miss Winslow,” he said, “some of the wild sights of Whitechapel?”
“Is it a dreadfully wild place, Mr Brown?”
“It is rather; eh, Johnnie?”
“I don’t know much about it, Harry.”
“Well, there are slums near by there, miss, that no man with a black coat and an umbrella dare enter in daylight owing to the wild beasts. Then there are peelers.”
“What are peelers? Monkeys?”
“Yes, miss; they are a sort of monkeys—blue monkeys—and carry sticks same as the real African ourang-outangs do. And can’t they use them too!”
“Are they very ugly?”
“Awful, and venomous too; and at night they have one eye that shines in the dark like a wild cat’s, and you’ve got to stand clear when that eye’s on you.”
“Well,” said Etheldene, “I wouldn’t like to be lost in a place like that. I’d rather be bushed where I am. But I think, Mr Brown, you are laughing at me. Are there any snakes in Whitechapel?”
“No, thank goodness; no, miss. I can’t stand snakes much.”
“There was a pretty tiger crept past you just as I was talking though,” she said with great coolness.
Harry jumped and shook himself. Etheldene laughed.
“It is far enough away by this time,” she remarked. “I saw something ripple past you, Harry, like a whip-thong. I thought my eyes had made it.”
“You brought it along with the wood perhaps,” said Craig quietly.
“’Pon my word,” cried Harry, “you’re a lot of Job’s comforters, all of you. D’ye know I won’t sleep one blessed wink to-night. I’ll fancy every moment there is a snake in my blanket or under the saddle.”
“They won’t come near you, Mr Brown,” said Craig. “They keep as far away from Englishmen as possible.”
“Not always,” said Bill. “Maybe ye wouldn’t believe it, but I was bitten and well-nigh dead, and it was a tiger as done it. And if I ain’t English, then there ain’t an Englishman ’twixt ’ere and Melbourne. See that, miss?” He held up a hand in the firelight as he spoke.
“Why,” said Etheldene, “you don’t mean to say the snake bit off half your little finger?”
“Not much I don’t; but he bit meonthe finger, miss. I was a swagsman then, and was gathering wood, as we were to-night, when I got nipped, and my chum tightened a morsel of string round it to keep the poison away from the heart, then he laid the finger on a stone and chopped it off with his spade. Fact what I’m telling you. But the poison got in the blood somehow all the same. They half carried me to Irish Charlie’s hotel. Lucky, that wasn’t far off. Then they stuck the whiskey into me.”
“Did the whiskey kill the poison?” said Archie.
“Whiskey kill the poison! Why, young sir, Charlie’s whiskey would have killed a kangaroo! But nothing warmed me that night; my blood felt frozen. Well, sleep came at last, and, oh, the dreams! ’Twere worse ten thousand times than being wi’ Daniel in the den o’ lions. Next day nobody hardly knew me; I was blue and wrinkled. I had aged ten years in a single night.”
“I say,” said Harry, “suppose we change the subject.”
“And I say,” said Craig, “suppose we make the beds.”
He got up as he spoke, and began to busy himself in preparations for Etheldene’s couch. It was easily and simply arranged, but the arrangement nevertheless showed considerable forethought.
He disappeared for a few minutes, and returned laden with all the necessary paraphernalia. A seven-foot pole was fastened to a tree; the other end supported by a forked stick, which he sharpened and drove into the ground. Some grass was spread beneath the pole, a blanket thrown carefully over it, the upturned saddle put down for a pillow, and a tent formed by throwing over the pole a loose piece of canvas that he had taken from his saddle-bow, weighted down by some stones, and the whole was complete.
“Now, Baby,” said Craig, handing Etheldene a warm rug, “will you be pleased to retire?”
“Where is my flat candlestick?” she answered. Gentleman Craig pointed to the Southern Cross. “Yonder,” he said. “Is it not a lovely one?”
“It puts me in mind of old, old times,” said Etheldene with a sigh. “And you’re calling me ‘Baby’ too. Do you remember, ever so long ago in the Bush, when I was a baby in downright earnest, how you used to sing a lullaby to me outside my wee tent?”
“If you go to bed, and don’t speak any more, I may do so again.”
“Good-night then. Sound sleep to everybody. What fun!” Then Baby disappeared.
Craig sat himself down near the tent, after replenishing the fire—he was to keep the first watch, then Bill would come on duty—and at once began to sing, or rather ‘croon’ over, an old, old song. His voice was rich and sweet, and though he sang low it could be heard distinctly enough by all, and it mingled almost mournfully with the soughing of the wind through the tall trees.
“My song is rather a sorrowful ditty,” he had half-whispered to Archie before he began; “but it is poor Miss Ethie’s favourite.” But long before Craig had finished no one around the log fire was awake but himself.
He looked to his rifle and revolvers, placed them handy in case of an attack by blacks, then once more sat down, leaning his back against a tree and giving way to thought.
Not over pleasant thoughts were those of Gentleman Craig’s, as might have been guessed from his frequent sighs as he gazed earnestly into the fire.
What did he see in the fire?Tableauxof his past life? Perhaps or perhaps not. At all events they could not have been very inspiriting ones. No one could have started in life with better prospects than he had done; but he carried with him wherever he went his own fearful enemy, something that would not leave him alone, but was ever, ever urging him to drink. Even as a student he had been what was called “a jolly fellow,” and his friendship was appreciated by scores who knew him. He loved to be considered the life and soul of a company. It was an honour dearer to him than anything else; but deeply, dearly had he paid for it.
By this time he might have been honoured and respected in his own country, for he was undoubtedly clever; but he had lost himself, and lost all that made life dear—his beautiful, queenly mother. He would never see her more. She wasdead, yet the memory of the love she bore him was still the one, the only ray of sunshine left in his soul.
And he had come out here to Australia determined to turn over a new leaf. Alas! he had not done so.
“Oh, what a fool I have been!” he said in his thoughts, clenching his lists until the nails almost cut the palms.
He started up now and went wandering away towards the trees. There was nothing that could hurt him there. He felt powerful enough to grapple with a dozen blacks, but none were in his thoughts; and, indeed, none were in the forest.
He could talk aloud now, as he walked rapidly up and down past the weird grey trunks of the gum trees.
“My foolish pride has been my curse,” he said bitterly. “But should I allow it to be so? The thing lies in a nutshell I have never yet had the courage to say, ‘I will not touch the hateful firewater, because I cannot control myself if I do.’ If I take but one glass I arouse within me the dormant fiend, and he takes possession of my soul, and rules all my actions until sickness ends my carousal, and I am left weak as a child in soul and body. If I were not too proud to say those words to my fellow-beings, if I were not afraid of being laughed at as acoward! Ah, that’s it! It is too hard to bear! Shall I face it? Shall I own myself a coward in this one thing? I seem compelled to answer myself, to answer my own soul. Or is it my dead mother’s spirit speaking through my heart? Oh, if I thought so I—I—”
Here the strong man broke down. He knelt beside a tree trunk and sobbed like a boy. Then he prayed; and when he got up from his knees he was calm. He extended one hand towards the stars.
“Mother,” he said, “by God’s help I shall be free.”
When the morning broke pale and golden over the eastern hills, and the laughing jackasses came round to smile terribly loud and terribly chaffingly at the white men’s preparation for their simple breakfast, Craig moved about without a single trace of his last night’s sorrow. He was busy looking after the horses when Etheldene came bounding towards him with both hands extended, so frank and free and beautiful that as he took hold of them he could not help saying:
“You look as fresh as a fern this morning, Baby.”
“Not so green, Craig. Say ‘Not so green.’”
“No, not so green. But really to look at you brings a great big wave of joy surging all over my heart. But to descend from romance to common-sense. I hope you are hungry? I have just been seeing to your horse. Where do you think I found him?”
“I couldn’t guess.”
“Why in the water down yonder. Lying down and wallowing.”
“The naughty horse! Ah, here come the others! Good morning all.”
“We have been bathing,” said Archie. “Oh, how delicious!”
“Yes,” said Harry; “Johnnie and I were bathing down under the trees, and it really was a treat to see how quickly he came to bank when I told him there was an alligator taking stock.”
“We scared the ducks though. Pity we didn’t bring our guns and bag a few.”
“I believe we’ll have a right good breakfast at Findlayson’s,” said Craig; “so I propose we now have a mouthful of something and start.”
The gloom of that deep forest became irksome at last; though some of its trees were wondrous to behold in their stately straightness and immensity of size, the trunks of others were bent and crooked into such weird forms of contortion, that they positively looked uncanny.
Referring to these, Archie remarked to Craig, who was riding by his side:
“Are they not grotesquely beautiful?”
Craig laughed lightly.
“Their grotesqueness is apparent anyhow,” he replied. “But would you believe it, in this very forest I was a week mad?”
“Mad!”
“Yes; worse than mad—delirious. Oh, I did not run about, I was too feeble! but a black woman or girl found me, and built a kind of bark gunja over me, for it rained part of the time and dripped the rest. And those trees with their bent and gnarled stems walked about me, and gibbered and laughed, and pointed crooked fingers at me. I can afford to smile at it now, but it was very dreadful then; and the worst of it was I had brought it all on myself.”
Archie was silent.
“You know in what way?” added Craig.
“I have been told,” Archie said, simply and sadly.
“For weeks, Mr Broadbent, after I was able to walk, I remained among the blacks doing nothing, just wandering aimlessly from place to place; but the woods and the trees looked no longer weird and awful to me then, for I was in my right mind. It was spring—nay, but early summer—and I could feel and drink in all the gorgeous beauty of foliage, of tree flowers and wild flowers, nodding palms and feathery ferns; but, oh! I left and went south again; I met once more the white man, and forgot all the religion of Nature in which my soul had for a time been steeped. So that is all a kind of confession. I feel the better for having made it. We are all poor, weak mortals at the best; only I made a resolve last night.”
“You did?”
“Yes; and I am going to keep it. I am going to have help.”
“Help!”
“Yes, from Him who made those stately giants of the forest and changed their stems to silvery white. He can change all things.”
“Amen!” said Archie solemnly.