Читать книгу A Daughter of the Bush - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 6

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ABOUT six o'clock the next morning I was awakened by a really alarming commotion. Chairs were being banged on the floor and against the walls in a most reckless fashion; furniture was being thrown about and the loud swish of water pouring continuously (to all seeming in and over the entire shanty) appeared to betoken a second deluge. Startled and perturbed, I called out to ascertain the reason of the racket. But not until my third shout did I obtain any response. Then, however, my door was burst open and Mrs. Garfield, armed with a dripping broom, and holding up bedraggled skirts over bare ankles and squashy slippers; appeared on the threshold.

"What the divvle do yer want?" she demanded. "It's not breakfast-time yet and I've the whole house to clean up agen the doctor's comin'——" Here she broke off and yelled, "Molly, Molly, ye baggage, the water's dyin' off. Turn on the cock full splash or I'll break yer neck for ye."

"Right oh!" sang out Molly in the distance. "If yer wants drowning, here goes to oblige you!"

A perfect surge followed. It was almost as though the bank of some dam had burst. Mrs. Garfield uttered a wild shriek, banged the door and fled, calling down fates too horrible to repeat on Molly's head. But she could not have been altogether serious, for Molly answered with uproarious laughter, and I did not hear any noise to indicate a personal encounter. For quite an hour, however, there were enough noises of other brands to keep me in a state of shuddering apprehension lest the shanty would either be carried bodily away or fall in pieces. Fortunately, all things have an end, and at last Mrs. Garfield's "clean-up" was over. Soon afterwards Molly brought me in a glass of fresh milk, thick with cream. Molly was an ox-faced servant with small pig-like eyes. Her figure resembled a bag of flour tied loosely in the middle, with two broom-sticks—for legs—protruding from the lower end, planted in boots of mammoth size and of the blücher variety.

She said "Good-morning, mister," and giggled. "Have some milk?" Another giggle. "Yer oughter see the house." A mighty giggle. "It's clean." A roar of laughter.

I took the glass, thanked her and began to sip. The milk was delicious. Molly just about finished her laugh when I was half through. "It ain't been cleaned since last time the doctor was here to post mortemise a corpus!" said Molly. Then she had another fit of laughter that lasted till I had quite finished the milk.

"I perceive you are a humorist," I remarked, as I handed her the glass.

"Go hon!" said Molly. "I ain't nothing of the kind. I'm the servant here. That's what I am." She was quite indignant.

"I mean that you are fond of a joke," I hastened to explain.

"Ham I?" said Molly. "Well, don't you try none of your capers on with me, young feller, or you might find out you was mistaken." Molly was not only indignant by this—she was on the very brink of fury.

"I assure you—my dear girl," I cried, "I have no intention of offending. As for capers, I beg you to remember I have a broken leg."

"Oh, I forgot the leg," said Molly, more calmly. "How's it bobbing up?"

"Very well, I believe. It is not hurting much."

"Good iron," said Molly, now quite pacified. She stared at me for a moment, then giggled once more.

"What's the matter?" I enquired.

She spluttered and screwed up her mouth. "No," she cried, and shook with repressed giggles like a great blancmange.

"I beg your pardon."

"Don't!" she gasped; and burst into another roar.

"What on earth ails you, girl?" I cried exasperated.

"He-he-he-he's getting bald!" shouted Molly, and quite overcome with this stupendously mirth-provocative discovery, she rushed off holding her hand to her mouth and cachinating like a regiment of giddy kukuburras.

Myrtle Hofer stood in the doorway. She had heard and seemed amused. "You needn't scowl at me," she protested smilingly. "I haven't commented on your personal defects."

"No," I growled, "but you are smiling still at that hyaena. Lord save us, what an owl it is!"

"Oh, Molly is all right. You must not mind her, Mr. Tolano. Her trouble is she sees fun in everything. But she's a good, willing girl, and will wait on one hand and foot for a kind word."

"I should prefer to be served by a three-legged jackass."

"Each man to his taste," cooed the girl, with a wicked smile. "I've come to tell you that the Doctor is approaching. His buggy has been sighted on the second rise. He'll be here in less than half an hour."

"Thank you."

"Mrs. Garfield is cooking some yabbies for your breakfast that Molly dug out of the creek bank before daylight, and I am baking you two lovely apples. I walked all the way to the Alley for them last night."

"You walked fourteen miles; to get me some apples? Oh! I say, Miss Hofer, that was too bad of you."

"There's a man's gratitude," she sighed.

"You know what I mean."

She folded her arms and frowned, then, perfectly imitating a man's gruff tones, she growled out: "See here, mate, I'm not taking any nonsense from you. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Here it is—your pipe."

She handed me my old cutty. I could not suppress a cry of delight. "I thought it was lost—down the gully."

"So it was," she returned; "I found tobacco in your swag but no pipe, so I concluded you had dropped it from your pocket where you fell. And there it was at the bottom of the gully. Talk about your Sherlock Holmes!"

"You climbed the mountain to look for my pipe?"

"Not only that," she answered. Then she bent over me and murmured in low, deep tones that were vibrant with reverent sincerity, "I wanted to thank the Virgin, for having sent an answer to my prayer."

"What a strange girl you are!"

"Strange to acknowledge benefits bestowed!"

"But how can you be sure?"

"My heart tells me. You must be a pagan or you would understand. Have you no faith? No faith at all?"

"None."

She caught her breath. "An atheist?" she gasped, her eyes dilating with surprise, and, too, I think, disgust. "Don't say you are an atheist."

"Not that, Miss Hofer, but all narrow things repel me, therefore creeds, which are the narrowest of all. The worshipful part of me demands room to worship in, room as vast and incontainable as space itself. I know of no religion that does not limit one's natural ideas of God."

"Oh, how wrong you are! Every religion, even the crudest, exalts and immeasurably extends the grandest unaided conception of His Omnipotence."

"Is that so? Then will you name me a religion which admits His right and His capacity to be wicked—in the human sense, of course?"

She turned a little pale and her lips parted. But she did not speak.

"All those I know of," I went on, "confine God's power within the restricted frame of what mankind in the aggregate considers good. They assert that He is all-powerful, but in the same breath they deny His authority to step outside the cage they have built for Him. He must not and cannot do what they consider wrong. They are kinder to the Devil They give the Devil supreme authority over evil, and they don't dispute his right to do good too if he wants to."

"You evidently consider good and evil indistinguishable," she said, slowly. "That is, if your philosophy is logical?"

"Not quite that, partner," I answered, with a smile. "But I contest the title of religions to define the indefinable and to apotheosise abstractions. Theologians, to my thinking, have invented the Devil in order to account for the more incomprehensible transactions of the Deity in man's regard. I prefer, as a mere outsider, to confess my understanding finite and to accept everything as good in a Universe presided over by an omnipotent Power of Good. Therefore, I deny the Devil and all his works and pomps."

"And worship God in evil?"

"In everything, Miss Hofer; in the starlit beauty of the night, the blazing noontide heat of day; in the spectacle of a mother crooning over the cradle of her new-born babe; in the martyrhood of Christ; in the ignorance of savages; in the triumphant genius of the educated intellect; in the loathsome cruelties of war; in the desperate blasphemies of murderers about to expiate their crimes upon the gallows' tree; even in this broken leg of mine, and that's a personal misfortune. How serious you are!"

"Your ideas are too vague and vast for me," she said. "I must have something to hold fast to——"

"A set of rigid guiding rules?" I suggested.

"Yes."

"That is, perhaps, because you have never considered morality as an independent force. In your mind it is indissolubly associated with religious faith, eh?"

"And most certainly it is," she cried.

"Ah, well, we shan't argue on the subject."

"You despise me too much to condescend," she flashed. "Or is it that you fear to risk the contest?"

"It is because I realise the invincible irreconcilability of our points of view, and because I hold the theory that while a man should never hesitate to express his convictions when called upon, he has no business to use them as a weapon of offence. We are all governed by superstition, Miss Hofer, in a great or less degree, and we all inevitably arrive at the conclusions fixed and destined by the limits of our individual enlightenment. Your equipment may or may not be perfectly developed. The same thing may be said of mine. But it's quite, evident our processes revolve in unrelated spheres. Why should we bring them into opposition needlessly? We should be bound to quarrel. I feel it in my blood. I can see it in your eye."

"But suppose you were wrong—and I could show——" she paused, blushing charmingly.

"You are burning to make a convert. Confess!" I cried.

"You are not quite generous, do you think?" she answered coldly. "Speech was not given us to conceal our finer thoughts, nor for the mere exchange of trivialities."

"I quite agree with you. It was intended as a medium for use in making friends, in detecting enemies, in conducting business, in sharpening the faculties of reason and in spurning opportunities of unprofitable intercourse. We have examples of its abuse in religious controversies and their historic outcome—'Wars of Faith,' 'The Spanish Inquisition'—the——"

"Stop!" she cried, half-laughing, half-frowning. "You have convinced me that we should quarrel beyond all doubt if we discussed religion any farther. Thank goodness here comes the doctor!"

"With all my heart."

"Gallant man!"

The doctor entered at that instant. He greeted Myrtle Hofer very warmly, and she gave him both her hands, which he dropped his bag to grasp.

"It was indeed good of you to come so quickly," she declared. "I had no right to expect such a generously prompt response to my message."

"But you did expect it," he said quietly, looking her keenly in the face. "That is well."

Then he turned to me, and I read in the light of his eyes a deep and passionate attachment. Unquestionably he loved Myrtle Hofer more than passing well. He was a big man, tall, broad-shouldered, vigorous-looking, with a high forehead, a prominent Roman nose and a sweeping black beard that concealed fully half of his features and spread like a fan across his chest. His eyes were deep set in his head and black as midnight.

"Good-day to you, my man," he said abruptly. "A digger, eh, and a stranger, too; I don't remember your face?"

"From down South," I replied. "I was on my way to the new Rush when I broke my leg."

"Just so, and hard luck you've had of it. They showed me a monster nugget this morning passing through the Point—680 ounces. A man named Utber found it, who only arrived on the field from Tarnagulla yesterday; a new chum miner, too."

"I know him," I groaned. "He was my last mate. Less than a month back we were digging post holes together near Singleton."

"The fortune of war," said the doctor. "Now for your leg."

In five minutes he had cut through all the bandages. "Lucky I came," he observed. "You'd have limped, else, to your grave. How do you bear pain?"

"So so."

"Then grip the bed-post hard and clench your teeth. Now, Miss Hofer, kindly stand there, and take the foot—heel and instep—that is right. Pull steadily towards yourself when I give the word. Now grip hard, my man—we're going to hurt you, but not for long. Ready. Now, Myrtle," said the doctor.

When it was over they had to unclench my fingers from the post, but I had the satisfaction of not having interrupted the proceedings with an outcry. In the circumstances it was a solid comfort, for the girl was quite upset and she sobbed audibly while the torture was on; no doubt my face was ugly enough under the infliction to frighten any one—even a man not also a surgeon. Afterwards Dr. White grew quite genial, and he wrung my straightened hand. "Nothing like the Australian brand of grit," he commented cheerfully.

"And a woman in the room," I gasped. "How long before I'm on my feet, sir?"

"Oh! you should walk in six weeks, easily. You're in prime condition, and rest is all you want to make the leg as good as new. I've put it up in solid plaster, so you'll not need any medical attention till the bone has set. I'll come again this day five weeks. Good-bye and good luck!"

Myrtle followed him from the room and I heard them talking for some time in low tones on the verandah. At length, however, a bell rang, and Mrs. Garfield's voice was raised noisily inviting the doctor to "come an' look at ther best breakfast yer ever saw in yer born days."

"I'll do more than that," laughed the doctor; "I'll eat it."

I was beginning to feel sadly neglected when Molly suddenly appeared with my yabbies. She flopped the tray on the bed, and stood back, red-faced and gloating.

"There ye are!" she said. "Fresh as mud and as fat as cocoa, I boiled 'em with four rusty nails, too, so they ought to taste simply scrumptious."

The yabbies indeed looked good. There were seven of them, and in colour and everything else they perfectly resembled (although land animals) miniature sea lobsters. And they were really delicious.

"It was more than good of you, Molly, to bother getting them for me," I exclaimed.

"Oh, rats!" she responded, with her extraordinary giggle. "You're a sick 'un, you are, and Myrtle told me I have to feed you up. This afternoon I'm goin' out with the gun up the creek to try for some wild duck."

"Are you a good shot?"

"Well—I don't need to shoot duck when they're sitting, anyway; though I'm no class to Myrtle. She can hit Jacky Wintons on the wing, she can."

"Molly! Molly, you slut!" yelled the voice of Mrs. Garfield.

"All right, old bullfinch, I'm a comin'!" shouted Molly. "Whatcher want, anyway?" She didn't stir a finger.

"Come here this minute, yer baggage!" screamed the irate landlady.

Molly winked at me and leisurely departed. But I heard all the sequential colloquy.

"Where's them three yabbies I told yer ter keep for the doctor?" demanded Mrs. Garfield.

"Golly! I guess the sick cove's had 'em," replied Molly. "I got 'em for him an' I gave 'em to him. And"—with an ascending pitch breathing the spirit of defiance—"he's been and gone an' eaten every mother's son and daughter of 'em!"

There was a moment's breathless stillness; then I heard a loud sharp sigh and a plaintive enquiry ensued: "Molly, dear, are you my bloomin' servant—or am I yours? Jest tell me, darlin', will yer?"

"I s'pose I'm yours," giggled Molly.

"Then," shrieked Mrs. Garfield, "git inter ther corfee-room an' wait at table or I'll break every blooming bone in yer blessed body! I'll yabbie yer—yer swine!"

"You touch me!—go on—just touch me!" retorted Molly invitingly, and stopping all her giggles as if by magic.

"Ho! So ye'd threaten me, would yer?"

"Would I!"

"Ho!"

"Ho, yerself!"

"Git in!"

"Git in yerself!"

"Molly," reproachfully.

"Think because you run a pub, you own the earth, I suppose! But I'll show you a point or two if you once get my monkey out."

"Molly," called the voice of Myrtle Hofer from the dining-room, "fetch me some hot water for the tea, will you please?"

"Certainly, Miss Myrtle," replied Molly instantly. "Be there in two twos," and her heavy blüchers thundered off in the direction of the kitchen.

It was the end of the battle, and neither adversary bore the other the slightest malice, it appeared; for a few minutes later I heard them discussing the huge nugget that my friend Utber had discovered; and while Mrs. Garfield's voice betokened amiability personified, Molly's giggles showed that her "monkey" was securely caged again.

Dr. White occupied a full hour over his breakfast, but perhaps he did not eat all the time. Myrtle Hofer was his companion. Later on she and Molly helped him put his horses into the buggy. He had to return to Wakool to perform a dangerous operation on a dying woman, according to Mrs. Garfield, and he had cut his time rather fine. Mrs. Garfield seemed rather glad. Every now and then she passed my door, and she always had a word to say. I gathered that she held the doctor in a good deal of fearful respect, and felt embarrassed in his company.

"A hard man, the doctor," she said at last, and heaved a big sigh of relief; then she shouted "Good-bye!" I heard the sound of wheels and stamping hoofs, and then a light step on the verandah.

"Good-bye," said Myrtle's voice.

"Good-bye—and remember!" replied the doctor.

"Remember what?" demanded Mrs. Garfield, after a full minute.

"How to mind my own business, Mrs. Garfield," replied the girl with a most unusual tartness in her tones.

"Hoity-toity! Can't a body ask a civil question to the madam?"

"As many civil questions as she pleases."

Myrtle stepped into my room biting her lips. Her eyes were very bright and her cheeks were pale as chalk. Something had evidently moved her to her depths.

I looked at her, and then away from her in silence, listening to her panting breaths. She was fighting for control; in a few minutes she had won the fight. She came over and smoothed my bed-clothes, drawing them straight.

"He took a mean advantage of me in the stable," she muttered. "He kissed me against my will, and he swore an oath to make me marry him. I thought he was a gentleman—but he is just like all the others."

"Like all the others," I repeated stupidly.

"Men are all alike—brutes when in the mood to woo," she bitterly declared.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Why this confidence, Miss Hofer?"

"To make you realise how much you owe me."

"Ah, I see. Well, next time the doctor comes here I'll call him to account, if you desire. I can set that right, at all events."

"I neither desire nor require such a compromising championship, thank you, Mr. Tolano!"

"Oh!" I said hastily. "I beg your pardon—that circumstance escaped me. Not for worlds——"

"Well?"

"I'm sure you understand."

"Not for worlds would you compromise yourself. Is that it?"

"I think, matey," I said, forcing a smile, "you are rather out of sorts to-day. It appears the doctor behaved like a cad; but it isn't a necessary sequence that he is one, much less than I am, though we're both men."

"You defend him?"

"I confess a sneaking sympathy for madmen and lovers. They are mental irresponsibles. The doctor, in my opinion, is radically afflicted."

"Oh! So you hold yourself superior to passion?"

"How you jump at conclusions."

"Answer me: do you?"

"For once you have guessed right. I do."

"And that, in the language of common sense, merely means that you have never been in love?"

Her eyes met mine in a long, questioning encounter. I had at first a mind to shrug aside enquiry; but I ended by resolving to be more candid and more courteous. I fancied it might do this strange wild girl a little good. "It does not mean that," I answered. "It means that my native-born capacity for sentimental folly has been consumed by the fires of experience."

"Oh!" she muttered. "Oh!" and dropped her eyes.

In a little while she smiled, and said she would be late for school. I did not see her again for five days.