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The homestead, standing half-way up the slope that rose from the billabong, had, after all, little of that “down-at-heels, anything’ll-do” appearance that Mac had so scathingly described. No one could call it a “commodious station home,” and it was even patched up and shabby; but, for all that, neat and cared for. An orderly little array of one-roomed buildings, mostly built of sawn slabs, and ranged round a broad oblong space with a precision that suggested the idea of a section of a street cut out from some neat compact little village.
The cook’s quarters, kitchens, men’s quarters, store, meat-house, and waggon-house, facing each other on either side of this oblong space, formed a short avenue—the main thoroughfare of the homestead—the centre of which was occupied by an immense wood-heap, the favourite gossiping place of some of the old black fellows, while across the western end of it, and looking down it, but a little aloof from the rest of the buildings, stood the house, or, rather, as much of it as had been rebuilt after the cyclone of 1897. As befitted their social positions the forge and black boys’ “humpy” kept a respectful distance well round the south-eastern corner of this thoroughfare; but, for some unknown reason, the fowl-roosts had been erected over Sam Lee’s sleeping-quarters. That comprised this tiny homestead of a million and a quarter acres, with the Katherine Settlement a hundred miles to the north of it, one neighbour ninety miles to the east, another, a hundred and five to the south, and others about two hundred to the west.
Unfortunately, Mac’s description of the House had been only too correct. With the exception of the one roughly finished room at its eastern end, it was “mostly verandahs and promises.”
After the cyclone had wrecked the building, scattering timber and sheets of iron in all directions, everything had lain exactly where it had fallen for some weeks, at the mercy of the wind and weather. At the end of those weeks a travelling Chinese carpenter arrived at the station with such excellent common-sense ideas of what a bush homestead should be, that he had been engaged to rebuild it.
His plans showed a wide-roofed building, built upon two-foot piles, with two large centre rooms opening into each other and surrounded by a deep verandah on every side; while two small rooms, a bathroom and an office, were to nestle each under one of the eastern corners of this deep twelve-foot verandah. Without a doubt excellent common-sense ideas; but, unfortunately, much larger than the supply of timber. Rough-hewn posts for the two-foot piles and verandah supports could be had for the cutting, and therefore did not give out; but the man used joists and uprights with such reckless extravagance, that by the time the skeleton of the building was up, the completion of the contract was impossible. With philosophical indifference, however, he finished one room completely; left a second a mere outline of uprights and tye-beams; apparently forgot all about the bathroom and office; covered the whole roof, including verandahs, with corrugated iron; surveyed his work with a certain amount of stolid satisfaction; then announcing that “wood bin finissem,” applied for his cheque and departed; and from that day nothing further has been done to the House, which stood before us “mostly verandahs and promises.”
Although Mac’s description of the House had been apt, he had sadly underrated the furniture. There werefourchairs, all “up” to my weight, while two of them were up to the Măluka’s. The cane was all gone, certainly, but had been replaced with green-hide seats (not green in colour, of course, only green in experience, never having seen a tan-pit). In addition to the chairs, the dining-table, the four-poster bed, the wire mattress, and the looking glass, there was a solid deal side table, made from the side of a packing-case, with four solid legs and a solid shelf underneath, also a remarkably steady washstand that had no ware of any description, and a remarkably unsteady chest of four drawers, one of which refused to open, while the other three refused to shut. Further, the dining-table was more than “fairly” steady, three of the legs being perfectly sound, and it therefore onlythreatenedto fall over when leaned upon. And lastly, although most of the plates and all the cups were enamel ware, there was almost a complete dinner service in china. The teapot, however, was tin, and, as Mac said, as “big as a house.”
As for the walls, not only were the “works of art” there, but they themselves were uniquely dotted from ceiling to floor with the muddy imprints of dogs’ feet—not left there by a Pegasus breed of winged dogs, but made by the muddy feet of the station dogs, as they pattered over the timber, when it lay awaiting the carpenter, and no one had seen any necessity to remove them. Outside the verandahs, and all around the house, was what was to be known later as the garden, a grassy stretch of hillocky ground, well scratched and beaten down by dogs, goats, and fowls; fenceless itself, being part of the grassy acres which were themselves fenced round to form the homestead enclosures. Just inside this enclosure, forming, in fact, the south-western barrier of it, stood the “billabong,” then a spreading sheet of water; along its banks flourished the vegetable garden; outside the enclosure, towards the south-east, lay a grassy plain a mile across, and to the north-west were the stock-yards and house paddock—a paddock of five square miles, and the only fenced area on the run; while everywhere to the northwards, and all through the paddock, were dotted “white-ant” hills, all shapes and sizes, forming brick-red turrets among the green scrub and timber.
“Well!” Mac said, after we had completed a survey. “I said it wasn’t a fit place for a woman, didn’t I?”
But the Head-stockman was in one of his argumentative moods. “Any place is a fit place for a woman,” he said, “provided the woman is fitted for the place. The right man in the right place, you know. Square people shouldn’t try to get into round holes.”
“The woman’ssquareenough!” the Măluka interrupted; and Mac added, “And so is thehole,” with a scornful emphasis on the word “hole.”
Dan chuckled, and surveyed the queer-looking building with new interest.
“It reminds me of a banyan tree with corrugated-iron foliage,” he said, adding as he went into details, “In a dim light the finished room would pass for the trunk of the tree and the uprights for the supports of the branches.”
But the Măluka thought it looked more like a section of a mangrove swamp, piles and all.
“It looks very like a house nearly finished,” I said severely; for, because of the verandah and many promises, I was again hopeful for something approaching that commodious station home. “A few able-bodied men could finish the dining-room in a couple of days, and make a mansion of the rest of the building in a week or so.”
But the able-bodied men had a different tale to tell.
“Steady! Go slow, missus!” they cried. “It maylooklike a house very nearly finished, but out-bush, we have to catch our hares before we cook them.”
“Webegin at the very beginning of things in the Never-Never,” the Măluka explained. “Timber grows in trees in these parts, and has to be coaxed out with a saw.”
“It’s a bad habit it’s got into,” Dan chuckled; then pointing vaguely towards the thickly wooded long Reach, that lay a mile to the south of the homestead, beyond the grassy plain, he “supposed the dining-room was down there just now, with the rest of the House.”
With fast-ebbing hopes I looked in dismay at the distant forest undulating along the skyline, and the Măluka said sympathetically, “It’s only too true, little un’.”
But Dan disapproved of spoken sympathy under trying circumstances. “It keeps ’em from toeing the line” he believed; and fearing I was on the point of showing the white feather he broke in with: “We’ll have to keep her toeing the line, Boss,” and then pointed out that “things might be worse.” “In some countries there are no trees to cut down,” he said.
“That’s the style,” he added, when I began to laugh in spite of my disappointment, “We’ll soon get you educated up to it.”
But already the Sanguine Scot had found the bright side of the situation, and reminded us that we were in the Land of Plenty of Time. “There’s time enough for everything in the Never-Never,” he said. “She’ll have many a pleasant ride along the Reach choosing trees for timber. Catching the hare’s often the best part of the fun.”
Mac’s cheery optimism always carried all before it. Pleasant rides through shady forest-ways seemed a fair recompense for a little delay; and my spirits went up with a bound, to be dashed down again the next moment by Dan.
“We haven’t got to the beginning of things yet,” he interrupted, following up the line of thought the Măluka had at first suggested. “Before any trees are cut down, we’ll have to dig a saw-pit and find a pit-sawyer.” Dan was not a pessimist; he only liked to dig down to the very root of things, besides objecting to sugar-coated pills as being a hindrance to education.
But the Dandy had joined the group, and being practical, suggested “trying to get hold of little Johnny,” declaring that “he would make things hum in no time.”
Mac happened to know that Johnny was “inside” somewhere on a job, and it was arranged that Dan should go in to the Katherine at once for nails and “things,” and to see if the telegraph people could find out Johnny’s whereabouts down the line, and send him along.
But preparations for a week’s journey take time, outbush, owing to that necessity of beginning at the beginning of things. Fresh horses were mustered, a mob of bullocks rounded up for a killer, swags and pack-bags packed; and just as all was in readiness for the start, the Quiet Stockman came in, bringing a small mob of colts with him.
“I’m leaving,” he announced in the Quarters; then, feeling some explanation was necessary, added, “Iwasthinking of it before this happened.” Strictly speaking, this may be true, although he omitted to say that he had abandoned the idea for some little time.
No one was surprised, and no one thought of askingwhathad happened, for Jack had always steered clear of women, as he termed it. Not that he feared or disliked them, but because he considered that they had nothing in common with men. “They’re such terrors for asking questions,” he said once, when pressed for an opinion, adding as an afterthought, “They never seem to learn much either,” in his own quiet way, summing up the average woman’s conversation with a shy bushman: a long string of purposeless questions, followed by inane remarks on the answers.
“I’m leaving!” Jack had said, and later met the Măluka unshaken in his resolve. There was that in the Măluka, however, that Jack had not calculated on—a something that drew all men to him, and made Dan speak of him in after-years as the “best boss ever I struck”; and although the interview only lasted a few minutes, and the Măluka spoke only of the work of the station, yet in those few minutes the Quiet Stockman changed his mind, and the notice was never given.
“I’m staying on,” was all he said on returning to the Quarters; and quick decisions being unusual with Jack, every one felt interested.
“Going to give her a chance?” Dan asked with a grin, and Jack looked uncomfortable.
“I’ve only seen the boss,” he said.
Dan nodded with approval. “You’ve got some sense left, then,” he said, “if you know a good boss when you see one.”
Jack agreed in monosyllables; but when Dan settled down to argue out the advantages of having a woman about the place, he looked doubtful; but having nothing to say on the subject, said nothing; and when Dan left for the Katherine next morning he was still unconvinced.
Dan set out for the north track soon after sun-up, assuring us that he’d get hold of Johnny somehow; and before sun-down a traveller crossed the Creek below the billabong at the south track, and turned into the homestead enclosure.
We were vaguely chatting on all and sundry matters, as we sat under the verandah that faced the billabong, when the traveller came into sight.
“Horse traveller!” Mac said, lazily shading his eyes, and then sprang to his feet with a yell. “Talk of luck!” he shouted. “You’ll do, missus! Here’s Johnny himself.”
It was Johnny, sure enough; but Johnny had a cheque in his pocket, and was yearning to see the “chaps at the Katherine”; and, after a good look through the House and store, decided that he really would have to go in to the Settlement for—tools and “things.”
“I’ll be back in a week, missus,” he said next morning, as he gathered his reins together before mounting, “and then we shan’t be long. Three days in and three out, you know, bar accidents, and a day’s spell at the Katherine,” he explained glibly. But the “chaps at the Katherine” proved too entertaining for Johnny, and a fortnight passed before we saw him again.
The Quiet Stockman was a Scotchman, and, like many Scotchmen, a strange contradiction of shy reserve and quiet, dignified self-assurance. Having made up his mind on women in general, he saw no reason for changing it; and as he went about his work, thoroughly and systematically avoided me. There was no slinking round corners though; Jack couldn’t slink. He had always looked the whole world in the face with his honest blue eyes, and could never do otherwise. He only took care that our paths did not cross more often than was absolutely necessary; but when they did, his Scotch dignity asserted itself, and he said what had to be said with quiet self-possession, although he invariably moved away as soon as possible.
“It’s just Jack’s way,” the Sanguine Scot said, anxious that his fellow Scot should not be misunderstood. “He’ll be all there if ever you need him. He only draws the line at conversations.”
But when I mounted the stockyard fence one morning, to see the breaking-in of the colts, he looked as though he “drew the line” at that too.
Fortunately for Jack’s peace of mind, horse-breaking was not the only novelty at the homestead. Only a couple of changes of everything, in a tropical climate, meant an unbroken cycle of washing-days, while, apart from that, Sam Lee was full of surprises, and the lubras’ methods of house-cleaning were novel in the extreme.
Sam was bland, amiable, and inscrutable, and obedient to irritation; and the lubras were apt, and merry, and open-hearted, and wayward beyond comprehension. Sam did exactly as he was told, and the lubras did exactly as they thought fit, and the results were equally disconcerting.
Sam was asked for a glass of milk, and the lubras were told to scrub the floor. Sam brought the milk immediately, and the lubras, after scrubbing two or three isolated patches on the floor, went off on some frolic of their own.
At afternoon tea there was no milk served. “There was none,” Sam explained blandly. “The missus had drunk it all. Missus bin finissem milk all about,” he said When the lubras were brought back,theysaidtheyhad “knocked up longa scrub,” and finished the floor under protest.
The Măluka offered assistance; but I thought I ought to manage them myself, and set the lubras to clean and strip some feathers for a pillow—the Măluka had been busy with a shot-gun—and suggested to Sam that he might spend some of his spare time shooting birds.
Mac had been right when he said the place was stiff with birds. A deep fringe of birds was constantly moving in and about and around the billabong; and the perpetual clatter of the plovers and waders formed an undercurrent to the life at the homestead.
The lubras worked steadily for a quarter of an hour at the feathers; then a dog-fight demanding all their attention, the feathers were left to the mercy of the winds, and were never gathered together. At sundown Sam fired into a colony of martins that Mac considered the luck of the homestead. Right into their midst he fired, as they slept in long, graceful garlands one beside the other along the branches of a gum-tree, each with its head snugly tucked away out of sight.
“Missus want feather!” Sam said, with his unfathomable smile, when Mac flared out at him, and again the missus appeared the culprit.
The Măluka advised making the orders a little clearer, and Sam was told to use more discretion in his obedience, and, smiling and apologetic, promised to obey.
The lubras also promised to be more painstaking, reserving only the right to rest if they should “knock up longa work.”
The Măluka, Mac and the Dandy, looked on in amusement while the missus wrestled with the servant question; and even the Quiet Stockman grinned sympathetically at times, unconsciously becoming interested in a woman who was too occupied to ask questions.
For five days I “wrestled”; and the only comfort I had was in Bertie’s Nellie, a gentle-faced old lubra—almost sweet-faced. She undoubtedly did her best, and, showing signs of friendship, was invaluable in “rounding up” the other lubras when they showed signs of “knocking up.”
On the morning of the sixth day Sam surpassed himself in obedience. I had hinted that breakfast should be a little earlier, adding timidly that he might use a little more ingenuity in the breakfast menu, and at the first grey streak of dawn breakfast was announced, and, dressing hurriedly, we sat down to what Sam called “Pump-pie-King pie with raisins and mince.” The expression on Sam’s face was celestial. No other word could describe it. There was also an underlying expression of triumph which made me suspicious of his apparent ingenuousness, and as the lubras had done little else but make faces at themselves in the looking-glass for two days (I was beginning to hate that looking-glass), I appealed to the Măluka for assistance.
He took Sam in hand, and the triumph slipped away from beneath the stolid face, and a certain amount of discrimination crept into his obedience from henceforth.
Then the Sanguine Scot said that he would “tackle the lubras for her,” and in half an hour everywhere was swept and garnished, and the lubras were meek and submissive.
“You’ll need to rule them with a rod of iron,” Mac said, secretly pleased with his success. But there was one drawback to his methods, for next day, with the exception of Nellie, there were no lubras to rule with or without a rod of iron.
Jimmy, the water-carrier and general director of the woodheap gossip, explained that they had gone off with the camp lubras for a day’s recreation; “Him knock up longa all about work,” he said, with an apologetic smile. Jimmy was either apologetic or condescending.
Nellie rounded them up when they returned, and the Măluka suggested, as a way out of the difficulty, that I should try to make myself more attractive than the camp lubras, which Mac said “shouldn’t be difficult,” and then coughed, doubtful of the compliment.
I went down to the Creek at once to carry out the Măluka’s suggestion, and succeeded so well that I was soon the centre of a delighted dusky group, squatting on its haunches, and deep in fascinations of teaching an outsider its language. The uncouth mispronunciations tickled the old men beyond description, and they kept me gurgling at difficult gutturals, until, convulsed at the contortion of everyday words and phrases, they echoed Dan’s opinion in queer pidgin-English that the “missus needed a deal of education.” Jimmy gradually became loftily condescending, and as for old Nellie, she had never enjoyed anything quite so much.
Undoubtedly I made myself attractive to the blackfellow mind; for, besides having proved an unexpected entertainment, I had made every one feel mightily superior to the missus. That power of inspiring others with a sense of superiority is an excellent trait to possess when dealing with a black fellow, for there were more than enough helpers next day, and the work was done quickly and well, so as to leave plenty of time for merry-making.
The Măluka and Mac were full of congratulations. “You’ve got the mob well in hand now,” Mac said, unconscious that he was about to throw everything into disorder again.
For six years Mac had been in charge of the station, and when he heard that the Măluka was coming north to represent the owners, he had decided to give bullock-punching a turn as a change from stock-keeping. Sanguine that “there was a good thing in it,” he had bought a bullock waggon and team while in at the Katherine, and secured “loading” for “inside.” Under these circumstances it was difficult to understand why he had been so determined in his blocking, the only reason he could ever be cajoled into giving being “that he was off the escorting trick, and, besides, the other chaps had to be thought of.”
He was now about to go to “see to things,” taking Bertie, his right-hand boy, with him, but leaving Nellie with me. Bertie had expressed himself quite agreeable to the arrangement, but at the eleventh hour refused to go without Nellie; and Nellie, preferring the now fascinating homestead to the company of her lord and master, refused to go with him, and Mac was at his wits’ end.
It was impossible to carry her off by force, so two days were spent in shrill ear-splitting arguments the threads of Nellie’s argument being that Bertie could easily “catch nuzzer lubra,” and that the missus “must have one good fellow lubra on the staff.”
Mac, always chivalrous, said he would manage somehow without Bertie, rather than “upset things”; but the Măluka would not agree, and finally Nellie consented to go, on condition that she would be left at the homestead when the waggons went through.
Then Mac came and confessed a long-kept secret. Roper belonged to the station, and he had no claim on him beyond fellowship. “I’ve ridden him ever since I came here, that’s all,” he said, his arm thrown across the old horse. “I’d have stuck to him somehow, fair means or foul, if I hadn’t seen you know how to treat a good horse.”
The Măluka instantly offered fair means, but Mac shook his head. “Let the missus have him,” he said, “and they’ll both have a good time. But I’m first offer when it comes to selling.” So the grand old horse was passed over to me to be numbered among the staunchest and truest of friends.
“Oh, well,” Mac said in good-bye. “All’s well that end’s well,” and he pointed to Nellie, safely stowed away in a grove of dogs that half filled the back of the buck-board.
But all had not ended for us. So many lubras put themselves on the homestead staff to fill the place left vacant by Nellie, that the one room was filled to overflowing while the work was being done, and the Măluka was obliged to come to the rescue once more. He reduced the house staff to two, allowing a shadow or two extra in the persons of a few old black fellows and a piccaninny or two, sending the rejected to camp.
In the morning there was a free fight in camp between the staff and some of the camp lubras, the rejected, led by Jimmy’s lubra—another Nellie—declaring the Măluka had meant two different lubras each day.
Again there was much ear-splitting argument, but finally a compromise was agreed on. Two lubras were to sit down permanently, while as many as wished might help with the washing and watering. Then the staff and the shadows settled down on the verandah beside me to watch while I evolved dresses for two lubras out of next to nothing in the way of material, and as I sewed, the Măluka, with some travellers who were “in” to help him, set to work to evolve a garden also out of next to nothing in the way of material.
Hopeless as it looked, oblong beds were soon marked out at each of the four corners of the verandah, and beyond the beds a broad path was made to run right round the House. “The wilderness shall blossom like the rose,” the Măluka said, planting seeds of a vigorous-growing flowering bean at one of the corner posts.
The travellers were deeply interested in the servant wrestle, and when the Staff was eventually clothed, and the rejected green with envy, decided that the “whole difficulty was solved, bar Sam.”
Sam, however, was about to solve his part of the difficulty to every one’s satisfaction. A master as particular over the men’s table as his own was not a master after Sam’s heart, so he came to the Măluka, and announced, in the peculiar manner of Chinese cooks, that he was about to write for a new cook for the station, who would probably arrive within six weeks, when Sam, having installed him to our satisfaction, would, with our permission, leave our service.
The permission was graciously given, and as Sam retired we longed to tell him to engage some one renowned for his disobedience. We fancied later that our willingness piqued Sam, for after giving notice he bestirred himself to such an extent that one of our visitors tried to secure his services for himself, convinced we were throwing away a treasure.
In that fortnight we had several visitors, travellers passing through the station, and as each stayed a day or two, a few of the visits overlapped, and some merry hours were spent in the little homestead.
Some of the guests knew beforehand of the arrival of a missus at the station, and came ready groomed from their last camp; but others only heard of her arrival when inside the homestead enclosure, and there was a great application of soap, and razors, and towels before they considered themselves fit for presentation.
With only one room at our disposal it would seem to the uninitiated that the accommodation of the homestead must have been strained to bursting point; but “out-bush” every man carries a “bluey” and a mosquito net in his swag, and as the hosts slept under the verandah, and the guests on the garden paths, or in their camps among the forest trees, spare rooms would only have been superfluous. With a billabong at the door, a bathroom was easily dispensed with; and as every one preferred the roomy verandahs for lounging and smoking, the House had only to act as a dressing-room for the hosts and a dining-room for all.
The meals, of course, were served on the dining-table; but no apology seemed necessary for the presence of a four-poster bed and a washing stand in the reception-room. They were there, and our guests knew why they were there, and words, like the spare rooms, would have been superfluous.
Breakfast at sun-up or thereabouts, dinner at noon and supper at sun-down, is the long-established routine of meals on all cattle-runs of the Never-Never, and at all three meals Sam waited, bland and smiling.
The missus, of course, had one of the china cups, and the guests enamel ware; and the flies hovering everywhere in dense clouds, saucers rested on the top of the cups by common consent. Bread, scones, and such thing were covered over with serviettes throughout all meals while hands were kept busy “shooing” flies out of prospective mouthfuls.
Everything lacked conventionality, and was accepted as a matter of course; and although at times Sam sorely taxed my gravity by using the bed for a temporary dumb waiter, the bushmen showed no embarrassment, simply because they felt none, and retained their self-possession with unconscious dignity. They sat among the buzzing swarms of flies, light-hearted and self-reliant, chatting of their daily lives of lonely vigils, of cattle-camps and stampedes, of dangers and privations, and I listened with a dawning consciousness that life “out-bush” is something more than mere existence.
Being within four miles of the Overland Telegraph—that backbone of the overland route—rarely a week was to pass without someone coming in, and at times our travellers came in twos and threes, and as each brought news of that world outside our tiny circle, carrying in perhaps an extra mail to us, or one out for us, they formed a strong link in the chain that bound us to Outside.
In them every rank in bush life was represented, from cattle-drovers and stockmen to the owners of stations, from swag-men and men “down in their luck” to telegraph operators and heads of government departments, men of various nationalities with, foremost among them, the Scots, sons of that fighting race that has everywhere fought with and conquered the Australian bush. Yet, whatever their rank or race, our travellers were men, not riff-raff; the long, formidable stages that wall in the Never-Never have seen to that, turning back the weaklings and worthless to the flesh-pots of Egypt, and proving the worth and mettle of the brave-hearted: all men, every one of them, and all in need of a little hospitality, whether of the prosperous and well-doing or “down in their luck,” and each was welcomed according to that need; for out-bush rank counts for little: we are only men and women there. And all who came in, and went on, or remained, gave us of their best while with us; for there was that in the Măluka that drew the best out of all men. In life we generally find in our fellow-men just what we seek, and the Măluka, seeking only the good, found only the good and drew much of it into his own sympathetic, sunny nature. He demanded the best and was given the best, and while with him, men found they were better men than at other times.
Some of our guests sat with us at table, some with the men, and some “grubbed in their camps.” All of them rode in strangers and many of them rode out life-long friends, for such is the way of the bushfolk: a little hospitality, a day or two of mutual understanding, and we have become part of the other’s life. For bush hospitality is something better than the bare housing and feeding of guests, being just the simple sharing of our daily lives with a fellow-man—a literal sharing of all that we have; of our plenty or scarcity, our joys or sorrows, our comforts or discomforts, our security or danger; a democratic hospitality, where all men are equally welcome, yet so refined in its simplicity and wholesomeness, that fulsome thanks or vulgar apologies have no part in it, although it was whispered among the bushfolk that those “down in their luck” learned that when the Măluka was filling tucker-bags, a timely word in praise of the missus filled tucker-bags to over-flowing.
Two hundred and fifty guests was the tally for that year, and earliest among them came a telegraph operator, who as is the way with telegraphic operators out-bush invited us to “ride across to the wire for a shake hands with Outside”; and within an hour we came in sight of the telegraph wire as our horses mounted the stony ridge that overlooks the Warloch ponds, when the wire was forgotten for a moment in the kaleidoscope of moving, ever-changing colour that met our eyes.
Two wide-spreading limpid ponds, the Warloch lay before us, veiled in a glory of golden-flecked heliotrope and purple water-lilies, and floating deep green leaves, with here and there gleaming little seas of water, opening out among the lilies, and standing knee-deep in the margins a rustling fringe of light reeds and giant bulrushes. All round the ponds stood dark groves of pandanus palms, and among and beyond the palms tall grasses and forest trees, with here and there a spreading colabar festooned from summit to trunk with brilliant crimson strands of mistletoe, and here and there a gaunt dead old giant of the forest, and everywhere above and beyond the timber deep sunny blue and flooding sunshine. Sunny blue reflected, with the gaunt old trees, in the tiny gleaming seas among the lilies, while everywhere upon the floating leaves myriads and myriads of grey and pink “gallah” parrots and sulphur-crested cockatoos preened feathers, or rested, sipping at the water—grey and pink verging to heliotrope and snowy white, touched here and there with gold, blending, flower-like, with the golden-flecked glory of the lilies.
For a moment we waited, spell-bound in the brilliant sunshine; then the dogs running down to the water’s edge, the gallahs and cockatoos rose with gorgeous sunrise effect: a floating gray-and-pink cloud, backed by sunlit flashing white. Direct to the forest trees they floated and, settling there in their myriads, as by a miracle the gaunt, gnarled old giants of the bush all over blossomed with garlands of grey, and pink, and white, and gold.
But the operator, being unpoetical, had ridden on to the “wire,” and presently was “shinning up” one of its slender galvanised iron posts as a preliminary to the “handshake”; for tapping the line being part of the routine of a telegraph operator in the Territory, “shinning up posts,” is one of his necessary accomplishments.
In town, dust, and haste, and littered papers, and nerve-racking bustle seem indispensable to the sending of a telegram; but when the bush-folk “shake hands” with Outside all is sunshine and restfulness, soft beauty and leisurely peace. With the murmuring bush about us, in the clear space kept always cleared beneath those quivering wires, we stood all dressed in white, first looking up at the operator as, clinging to his pole, he tapped the line, and then looking down at him as he knelt at our feet with his tiny transmitter beside him clicking out our message to the south folk. And as we stood, with our horses’ bridles over our arms and the horses nibbling at the sweet grasses, in touch with the world in spite of our isolation, a gorgeous butterfly rested for a brief space on the tiny instrument, with gently swaying purple wings, and away in the great world men were sending telegrams amid clatter and dust, unconscious of that tiny group of bushfolk, or that Nature, who does all things well, can beautify even the sending of a telegram.
In the heart of the bush we stood yet listening to the clatter of the townsfolk, for, business over, the little clicking instrument was gossiping cheerily with us—the telegraph wire in the Territory being such a friendly wire. Daily it gathers gossip, and daily whispers it up and down the line, and daily news and gossip fly hither and thither: who’s “inside,” who has gone out, whom to expect, where the mailman is, the newest arrival in Darwin and the latest rainfall at Powell’s Creek.
Daily the telegraph people hear all the news of the Territory, and in due course give the news to the public, when the travellers gathering it, carry it out to the bushfolk, scattering it broadcast, until everybody knows every one else, and all his business and where it has taken him; and because of that knowledge, and in spite of those hundreds of thousands of square miles of bushland, the people of the Territory are held together in one great brotherhood.
Among various items of news the little instrument told us that Dan was “packing up for the return trip”; and in a day or two he came in, bringing a packet of garden seeds and a china teapot from Mine Host, Southern letters from the telegraph, and, from little Johnny, news that he was getting tools together and would be along in no time.
Being in one of his whimsical moods, Dan withheld congratulations.
“I’ve been thinking things over, boss,” he said, assuming his most philosophical manner “and I reckon any more rooms’ll only interfere with getting the missus educated.”
Later on he used the servant question to hang his argument on. “Just proves what I was saying” he said. “If the cleaning of one room causes all this trouble and worry, where’ll she be when she’s got four to look after? What with white ants, and blue mould, and mildew, and wrestling with lubras, there won’t be one minute to spare for education.”
He also professed disapproval of the Măluka’s devices for making the homestead more habitable. “If this goes on we’ll never learn her nothing but loafin’,” he declared when he found that a couple of yards of canvas and a few sticks had become a comfortable lounge chair. “Too much luxury!” and he sat down on his own heels to show how he scorned luxuries. A tree sawn into short lengths to provide verandah seats for all comers he passed over as doubtful. He was slightly reassured however, when he heard that my revolver practice had not been neglected, and condescended to own that some of the devices were “handy enough.” A neat little tray, made from the end of a packing-case and a few laths, interested him in particular. “You’ll get him dodged for ideas one of these days,” he said, alluding to the Măluka’s ingenuity, and when, a day or two later, I broke the spring of my watch and asked helplessly, “However was I going to tell the time till the waggons came with the clock?” Dan felt sure I had set an unsolvable problem.
“That ’ud get anybody dodged,” he declared; but it took more than that to “dodge” the Măluka’s resourcefulness. He spent a little while in the sun with a compass and a few wooden pegs, and a sundial lay on the ground just outside the verandah.
Dan declared it just “licked creation,” and wondered if “that ’ud settle ’em,” when I asked for some strong iron rings for a curtain. But the Dandy took a hobble chain to the forge, and breaking the links asunder, welded them into smooth round rings.
The need for curtain rings was very pressing, for, scanty as it was, the publicity of our wardrobe hanging in one corner of the reception room distressed me, but with the Dandy’s rings and a chequered rug for curtain, a corner wardrobe was soon fixed up.
Dan looked at it askance, and harked back to the sundial and education. “It’s ’cute enough,” he said. “But it won’t do, boss. She should have been taught how to tell the time by the sun. Don’t you let ’em spoil your chances of education, missus. You were in luck when you struck this place; never saw luck to equal it. And if it holds good, something’ll happen to stop you from ever having a house, so as to get you properly educated.”
My luck “held good” for the time being; for when Johnny came along in a few days he announced, in answer to a very warm welcome, that “something had gone wrong at No. 3 Well” and that “he’d promised to see to it at once.”
“Oh, Johnny!” I cried reproachfully, but the next moment was “toeing the line” even to the Head Stockman’s satisfaction; for with a look of surprise Johnny had added: “I—I thought you’d reckon that travellers’ water for the Dry came before your rooms.” Out-bush we deal in hard facts.
“Thought I’d reckon!” I said, appalled to think my comfort should even be spoken of when men’s lives were in question. “Of course I do; I didn’t understand, that was all.”
“We haven’t finished her education yet,” Dan explained, and the Măluka added, “But she’s learning.”
Johnny looked perplexed. “Oh, well! That’s all right, then,” he said, rather ambiguously. “I’ll be back as soon as possible, and then we shan’t be long.”
Two days later he left the homestead bound for the well, and as he disappeared into the Ti-Tree that bordered the south track, most of us agreed that “luck was out.” Only Dan professed to think differently. “It’s more wonderful than ever,” he declared; “more wonderful than ever, and if it holds good we’ll never see Johnny again.”
Considering ourselves homeless, the Măluka decided that we should “go bush” for awhile during Johnny’s absence beginning with a short tour of inspection through some of the southern country of the run; intending, if all were well there, to prepare for a general horse-muster along the north of the Roper. Nothing could be done with the cattle until “after the Wet.”
Only Dan and the inevitable black “boy” were to be with us on this preliminary walk-about; but all hands were to turn out for the muster, to the Quiet Stockman’s dismay.
“Thought they mostly sat about and sewed,” he said in the quarters. Little did the Sanguine Scot guess what he was doing when he “culled” needlework from the “mob” at Pine Creek.
The walk-about was looked upon as a reprieve, and when a traveller, expressing sympathy, suggested that “it might sicken her a bit of camp life,” Jack clung to that hope desperately.
Most of the nigger world turned up to see the “missus mount,” that still being something worth seeing. Apart from the mystery of the side-saddle, and the joke of seeing her in an enormous mushroom hat, there was the interest of the mounting itself; Jackeroo having spread a report that the Măluka held out his hands, while the missus ran up them and sat herself upon the horse’s back.
“They reckon you have escaped from a ‘Wild West Show,’” Dan said, tickled at the look of wonder on some of the faces as I settled myself in the saddle. We learned later that Jackeroo had tried to run up Jimmy’s hands to illustrate the performance in camp, and, failing, had naturally blamed Jimmy, causing report to add that the Măluka was a very Samson in strength.
“A dress rehearsal for the cattle-musters later on,” Dan called the walk-about, looking with approval on my cartridge belt and revolver; and after a few small mobs of cattle had been rounded up and looked over, he suggested “rehearsing that part of the performance where the missus gets lost, and catches cows and milks ’em.”
“Now’s your chance, missus,” he shouted, as a scared, frightened beast broke from the mob in hand, and went crashing through the undergrowth. “There’s one all by herself to practice on.” Dan’s system of education, being founded on object-lessons, was mightily convincing; and for that trip, anyway, he had a very humble pupil to instruct in the “ways of telling the signs of water at hand.”
All day as we zigzagged through scrub and timber, visiting water-holes and following up cattle-pads, the solitude of the bush seemed only a pleasant seclusion; and the deep forest glades, shady pathways leading to the outside world; but at night, when the camp had been fixed up in the silent depths of a dark Leichhardt-pine forest, the seclusion had become an isolation that made itself felt, and the shady pathways, miles of dark treacherous forest between us and our fellow-men.
There is no isolation so weird in its feeling of cut-offness as that of a night camp in the heart of the bush. The flickering camp-fires draw all that is human and tangible into its charmed circle, and without, all is undefinable darkness and uncertainty. Yet it was in this night camp among the dark pines, with even the stars shut out, that we learnt that out-bush “Houselessness” need not mean “Homelessness”—a discovery that destroyed all hope that “this would sicken her a bit.”
As we were only to be out one night, and there was little chance of rain, we had nothing with us but a little tucker, a bluey each, and a couple of mosquito nets. The simplicity of our camp added intensely to the isolation; and as I stood among the dry rustling leaves, looking up at the dark broad-leaved canopy above us, with my “swag” at my feet, the Măluka called me a “poor homeless little coon.”
A woman with a swag sounds homeless enough to Australian ears, but Dan, with his habit of looking deep into the heart of things, “didn’t exactly see where the homelessness came in.”
We had finished supper, and the Măluka stretching himself luxuriously in the firelight, made a nest in the warm leaves for me to settle down in. “You’re right, Dan,” he said, after a short silence, “when I come to think of it; I don’t exactly see myself where the homelessness comes in. A bite and a sup and a faithful dog, and a guidwife by a glowing hearth, and what more is needed to make a home. Eh, Tiddle’ums?”
Tiddle’ums having for some time given the whole of her heart to the Măluka, nestled closer to him and Dan gave an appreciative chuckle, and pulled Sool’em’s ears. The conversation promised to suit him exactly.
“Never got farther than the dog myself,” he said. “Did I, Sool’em, old girl?” But Sool’em becoming effusive there was a pause until she could be persuaded that “nobody wanted none of her licking tricks.” As she subsided Dan went on with his thoughts uninterrupted: “I’ve seen others at the guidwife business, though, and it didn’t seem too bad, but I never struck it in a camp before. There was Mrs. Bob now. You’ve heard me tell of her? I don’t know how it was, but while she was out at the “Downs” things seemed different. She never interfered and we went on just the same, but everything seemed different somehow.”
The Măluka suggested that perhaps he had “got farther than the dog” without knowing it, and the idea appearing to Dan, he “reckoned it must have been that.” But his whimsical mood had slipped away, as it usually did when his thoughts strayed to Mrs. Bob; and he went on earnestly, “She was the right sort if ever there was one. I know ’em, and she was one of ’em. When you were all right you told her yarns, and she’d enjoy ’em more’n you would yourself, which is saying something; but when you were off the track a bit you told her other things, and she’d heave you on again. See her with the sick travellers!” And then he stopped unexpectedly as his voice became thick and husky.
Camp-fire conversations have a trick of coming to an abrupt end without embarrassing any one. As Dan sat looking into the fire, with his thoughts far away in the past, the Măluka began to croon contentedly at “Home, Sweet Home,” and, curled up in the warm, sweet nest of leaves, I listened to the crooning, and, watching the varying expression of Dan’s face, wondered if Mrs. Bob had any idea of the bright memories she had left behind her in the bush. Then as the Măluka crooned on, everything but the crooning became vague and indistinct, and, beginning also to see into the heart of things, I learned that when a woman finds love and comradeship out-bush, little else is needed to make even the glowing circle of a camp fire her home-circle.
Without any warning the Măluka’s mood changed, “There is nae luck aboot her house, there is nae luck at a’,” he shouted lustily, and Dan, waking from his reverie with a start, rose to the tempting bait.
“Noluckaboutherhouse!” he said. “It was Mrs. Bob that had no luck. She struck a good, comfortable, well-furnished house first go off, and never got an ounce of educating. She was chained to that house as surely as ever a dog was chained to its kennel. But it’ll never come to that with the missus. Something’s bound to happen to Johnny, just to keep her from ever having a house. Poor Johnny, though,” he added, warming up to the subject. “It’s hard luck for him. He’s a decent little chap. We’ll miss him”; and he shook his head sorrowfully, and looked round for applause.
The Măluka said it seemed a pity that Johnny had been allowed to go to his fate; but Dan was in his best form.
“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” he said tragically. “He’d have got fever if he’d stayed on, or a tree would have fallen on him. He’s doomed if the missus keeps him to his contract.”
“Oh, well! He’ll die in a good cause,” I said cheerfully and Dan’s gravity deserted him.
“You’re the dead finish!” he chuckled, and without further ceremony, beyond the taking off his boots, rolled into his mosquito net for the night.
We heard nothing further from him until that strange rustling hour of the night—that hour half-way between midnight and dawn, when all nature stirs in its sleep, and murmurs drowsily in answer to some mysterious call.
Nearly all bushmen who sleep with the warm earth for a bed will tell of this strange wakening moment, of that faint touch of half-consciousness, that whispering stir, strangely enough, only perceptible to thesleepingchildren of the bush—one of the mysteries of nature that no man can fathom, one of the delicate threads with which the Wizard of Never-Never weaves his spells. “Is all well my children?” comes the cry from the watchman of the night; and with a gentle stirring the answer floats back “All is well.”
Softly the pine forest rustled with the call and the answer; and as the camp roused to its dim half-consciousness, Dan murmured sleepily, “Sool’em, old girl” then after a vigorous rustling among the leaves (Sool’em’s tail returning thanks for the attention), everything slipped back into unconsciousness until the dawn. As the first grey streak of dawn filtered through the pines, a long-drawn out cry of “Day-li-ght”—Dan’s camp reveille—rolled out of his net, and Dan rolled out after it, with even less ceremony than he had rolled in.
On our way back to the homestead, Dan suggesting that the “missus might like to have a look at the dining-room,” we turned into the towering timber that borders the Reach, and for the next two hours rode on through soft, luxurious shade; and all the while the fathomless spring-fed Reach lay sleeping on our left.
The Reach always slept; for nearly twelve miles it lay, a swaying garland of heliotrope and purple water-lilies, gleaming through a graceful fringe of palms and rushes and scented shrubs, touched here and there with shafts of sunlight, and murmuring and rustling with an attendant host of gorgeous butterflies and flitting birds and insects.
Dan looked on the scene with approving eyes. “Not a bad place to ride through, is it?” he said. But gradually as we rode on a vague depression settled down upon us, and when Dan finally decided he “could do with a bit more sunshine,” we followed him into the blistering noontide glare with almost a sigh of relief.
It is always so. These wondrous waterways have little part in that mystical holding power of the Never-Never. They are only pleasant places to ride through and—leave behind; for their purring slumberous beauty is vaguely suggestive of the beauty of a sleeping tiger:—a sleeping tiger with deadly fangs and talons hidden under a wonder of soft allurement; and when exiles in the towns sit and dream their dreams are all of stretches of scorched grass and quivering sun-flecked shade.
In the honest sunlight Dan’s spirits rose, and as I investigated various byways he asked “where the sense came in tying-up a dog that was doing no harm running loose.” “It waren’t as though she’d taken to chivying cattle,” he added, as, a mob of inquisitive steers trotting after us, I hurried Roper in among the riders; and then he wondered “how she’ll shape at her first muster.”
The rest of the morning he filled in with tales of cattle-musters tales of stampedes and of cattle rushing over camps and “mincing chaps into saw-dust” until I was secretly pleased that the coming muster was for horses.
But Jack’s reprieve was to last a little longer. When all was ready for the muster, word came in that outside blacks were in all along the river, and the Măluka deciding that the risks were too great for the missus in long-grass country, the plans were altered, and I was left at the homestead in the Dandy’s care.
“It’s a ill wind that blows nobody any good,” the Măluka said, drawing attention to Jack’s sudden interest in the proceedings.
Apart from sterling worth of character, the Dandy was all contrast to the Quiet Stockman: quick, alert, and sociable, and brimming over with quiet tact and thoughtfulness, and the Măluka knew I was in good hands. But the Dandy had his work to attend to; and after watching till the bush had swallowed up the last of the pack-team, I went to the wood-heap for company and consolation. Had the Darwin ladies seen me then, they would have been justified in saying, “I told you so.”
There was plenty of company at the wood-heap, but the consolation was doubtful in character. Goggle-Eye and three other old black fellows were gossiping there, and after a peculiar grin of welcome, they expressed great fear lest the homestead should be attacked by “outside” blacks during the Măluka’s absence. “Might it,” they said, and offered to sleep in the garden near me, as no doubt “missus would be frightened fellow” to sleep alone.
“Me big mob frightened fellow longa wild black fellow,” Goggle-Eye said, rather overdoing the part; and the other old rascals giggled nervously, and said “My word!” But sly, watchful glances made me sure they were only probing to find if fear had kept the missus at the homestead. Of course, if it had, a little harmless bullying for tobacco could be safely indulged in when the Dandy was busy at the yards.
Fortunately, Dan’s system of education provided for all emergencies; and remembering his counsel to “die rather than own to a black fellow that you were frightened of anything,” I refused their offer of protection, and declared so emphatically that there was nothing in heaven or earth that I was afraid to tackle single-handed, that I almost believed it myself.
There was no doubttheybelieved it, for they murmured in admiration “My word! Missus big mob cheeky fellow all right.” But in their admiration they forgot that they were supposed to be quaking with fear themselves, and took no precautions against the pretended attack. “Putting themselves away properly,” the Dandy said when I told him about it.
“It was a try-on all right,” he added. “Evidence was against you, but they struck an unexpected snag. You’ll have to keep it up, though”; and deciding “there was nothing in the yarn,” the Dandy slept in the Quarters, and I in the House, leaving the doors and windows open as usual.
When this was reported at dawn by Billy Muck, who had taken no part in the intimidation scheme, a wholesome awe crept into the old men’s admiration; for a black fellow is fairly logical in these matters.
To him, the man who crouches behind barred doors is a coward, and may be attacked without much risk, while he who relies only on his own strength appears as a Goliath defying the armies of a nation, and is best left alone, lest he develop into a Samson annihilating Philistines. Fortunately for my reputation, only the Dandy knew that we considered open doors easier to get out of than closed ones, and that my revolver was to be fired to call him from the Quarters if anything alarming occurred.
“You’ll have to live up to your reputation now,” the Dandy said, and, brave in the knowledge that he was within cooee, I ordered the old men about most unmercifully, leaving little doubt in their minds that “missus was big mob cheeky fellow.”
They were most deferential all day, and at sundown I completed my revenge by offering these rulers of a nation the insult of a woman’s protection. “If you are still afraid of the wild blacks, you may sleep near me to-night,” I said, and apologised for not having made the offer for the night before.
“You’ve got ’em on toast,” the Dandy chuckled as the offer was refused with a certain amount of dignity.
The lubras secretly enjoyed the discomfiture of their lords and masters, and taking me into their confidence, made it very plain that a lubra’s life at times is anything but a happy one; particularly if “me boy all day krowl (growl).” As for the lords and masters themselves, the insult rankled so that they spent the next few days telling great and valiant tales of marvellous personal daring, hoping to wipe the stain of cowardice from their characters. Fortunately for themselves, Billy Muck and Jimmy had been absent from the wood-heap, and, therefore, not having committed themselves on the subject of wild blacks, bragged excessively. Had they been present, knowing the old fellows well, I venture to think there would have been no intimidation scheme floated.
As the Dandy put it, “altogether the time passed pleasantly,” and when the Măluka returned we were all on the best of terms, having reached the phase of friendship when pet names are permissible. The missus had become “Gadgerrie” to the old men and certain privileged lubras. What it means I do not know, excepting that it seemed to imply fellowship. Perhaps it meant “old pal” or “mate,” or, judging from the tone of voice that accompanied it, “old girl,” but more probably, like “Măluka,” untranslatable. The Măluka was always “Măluka ” to the old men, and to some of us who imitated them.
Dan came in the day after the Măluka, and, hearing of our “affairs,” took all the credit of it to himself.
“Just shows what a bit of educating’ll do,” he said. “The Dandy would have had a gay old time of it if I hadn’t put you up to their capers”; and I had humbly to acknowledge the truth of all he said.
“I don’t say you’re not promising well,” he added, satisfied with my humility. “If Johnny’ll only stay away long enough, we’ll have you educated up to doing without a house.”
Within a week it seemed as though Johnny was aiding and abetting Dan in his scheme of education; for he sent in word that his “cross-cut saw,” or something equally important, had doubled up on him, and he was going back to Katherine to “see about it straight off.”