Читать книгу The Sands of Windee - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 14

Nature and the Rabbit

Of the hands at Windee, only three did not intend to go to the tin-kettling: Mr Roberts, who was overwhelmed by work; the cook, Alf the Nark (so-called because of his chronic temper); and Bony, who, not having met the Fosters, did not consider himself entitled to be present. The men’s quarters during the afternoon were a scene of great preparation, for Harry Foster was a popular overseer, and they intended honouring his bride and him by wearing their best clothes. They borrowed a flat-iron from Mrs Poulton, the “Government House” cook, and Ron, the Englishman, was kept ironing shirts and soft collars for an hour or more.

Sergeant Morris spent the afternoon with Father Ryan and the two Stantons in an easy-chair on the wide veranda of the big house. From where he sat he could see the men’s quarters, but throughout the afternoon failed to see Bony, with whom he badly wanted to speak. To preserve the detective’s incognito he decided against seeking him out too openly, and waited to see him before making an excuse to leave the house.

Marion and Mrs Poulton brought them tea about three o’clock, and when they arranged the things on a side-table Father Ryan could not but applaud the fact that the snobbery of wealth was entirely absent from the menage. In truth, Mrs Poulton, fat, small, greying, and sixty, was far more a companion-housekeeper than a kitchen cook. She had entered the service of the late Mrs Stanton shortly after Marion was born, and when Mrs Stanton died she undertook the whole of the house-work, the care of the children, and the domestic management of Jeff Stanton. The boss of Windee owed her a debt that he recognized he could never repay.

Mrs Poulton was dressed in her Sunday black, wearing stiff linen cuffs on her wrists and an enormous cameo brooch at the throat of her high-collared bodice. Marion wore a frock of pink charmeuse, and the kindly old priest felt whilst watching her that indescribable glow of content which is felt under such circumstances by a lover of beautiful things after having lived for years in the harsh ugliness of a prison—or a decaying Australian bush town.

As for Sergeant Morris, Mount Lion and a district as large as Wales claimed all his interest as policeman and administrator. In his odd or spare time he was a registrar of births and deaths, and married or buried Protestants if they preferred his unordained services to the ordained services of a Roman Catholic priest. These latter duties, however, were not onerous, since the whole of the people under his jurisdiction could have occupied quite comfortably the Government benches in the House of Commons.

The secret of Father Ryan’s wide popularity rested on the fact that first and foremost he was a very human, sympathetic man. His calling never obtruded. A product of Maynooth, Ireland, he shed his political enthusiasms entirely and moulded his religious tenets in conformity with the conditions and the outlook of his parishioners and friends.

Dinner had been served at one o’clock that day, and after tea taken at half-past six he went with Jeff Stanton to watch the men leave for Nullawil. The two-ton trucks were drawn up outside the men’s quarters, and when the two men joined the throng of hands arranging their own seating accommodation, Father Ryan was warmly greeted.

“I want you to pile on to Ron’s truck,” Jeff told them; and then, addressing himself to the driver of the second truck, went on: “Keep behind Ron and pick up the outside men who have centred at Range Hut. Both of you stop at the night-paddock gate this side of Nullawil, and wait for me. Have you got plenty of petrol-tins?”

They assured him with grins that they had, and a few seconds later the trucks pulled out on the eighty-mile journey. They watched the dust rise behind them and listened to the shouts and laughter ever growing fainter in the wonderful still air of early evening.

“They won’t be shouting to-morrow,” Jeff observed grimly, when he and the padre turned towards the house. “Not one of us will do a hand’s turn. I’ll be paying out wages for nothing and spending money on seventy gallons of petrol and several gallons of oil.”

“ ’Tis yourself should admit that the smiles and laughter ye’ve seen and heard this day are sufficient payment.”

“Perhaps I should. Father,” owned Jeff with twinkling eyes. “They’re good lads when treated as men, as I have always treated ’em. You’ve got to give me credit there.”

“Indeed I do, Jeff,” the little priest said, giving his companion a sly dig in the ribs with his elbow. “I give you credit, too, with having a little more intelligence than most employers. In that you are one with Mr Henry Ford. You never suffer strikes because you do treat your hands as men, and you are both millionaires. Why, here comes Miss Marion in trouble.”

“Dad, why isn’t Bony going?” she inquired.

“Not gone? By gad, I don’t remember seeing him go on the trucks, now you mention it!”

“No, there he is coming across from the horse-yards. Ask him, Dad! He could come with us. I’m sure he would like to go.”

Stanton, turning, saw Bony, and throwing back his head, roared in a voice almost to be heard in Mount Lion.

“Dad!” Marion cried reproachfully.

“Well, you don’t expect me to go gallivanting after a nig, do you?” Jeff demanded.

Marion made no comment, but smiled at Father Ryan’s smile. The three awaited the approach of the half-caste, and when he had doffed his hat to Marion, Jeff said in his loud gruff voice:

“Why-in-hell ain’t you gone to the tin-kettling?”

“Well, as I am not acquainted with the overseer and his bride, I thought it would be presumptuous to go,” Bony quietly explained.

Marion, regarding Father Ryan covertly, saw the priest’s blue eyes open wide with surprise at Bony’s cultivated voice, and was amused. Her father snapped:

“That makes no difference. We have all got to go. Even I have got to go, although I don’t want to. Would you like to go?”

Bony remained dubious. Marion suddenly smiled at him and said:

“If you care to go, Bony, you will be quite welcome, I assure you. We can give you a seat in the car, and I wouldn’t like to think that you were left behind simply because you have only recently come to Windee.”

“In that case, Miss Stanton, I shall be delighted.” The brown face was alight, and the gentle smile won Father Ryan as already it had won Marion. Old Jeff nodded agreeably, and Bony withdrew with bared head.

“Rather a remarkable half-caste,” murmured the priest.

“He’s a remarkable horse-breaker,” Stanton said.

“He’s one of the nicest men I’ve met,” was Marion’s verdict; and then she laughed at the look in Jeff’s face, and added: “I really can’t marry him, Dad, because he has a wife and three children already.”

“That’s a good thing!” Jeff growled, leading the way to the veranda.

Twenty minutes later they all got into a car that represented Jeff Stanton’s single extravagance, a straight-eight Royal Continental. Young Jeff drove this superb car, and seated next him was Bony, who volunteered to open the many gates. Behind them sat Sergeant Morris with Mrs Poulton as companion, and in the rear Father Ryan sat between Jeff and his daughter.

The sun had set and almost to the zenith the western sky was aflame with crimson, gold and purple. Thousands of galahs wheeled and fluttered about the two tall windmills built beside the great hole in the creek which was Windee’s permanent water supply, and their screeches were so vociferous that the excursionists found difficulty in making their own voices heard until they drew away from the homestead and slid on to the great salt-bush plain.

Bathed in the magic fleeting twilight, the great car sped towards the range of hills cutting Windee in halves, and for a little while the members of the party were silent; for, almost as swiftly as they were carried to the couch of King Sol, so the purple and blue shades of the sky sank to the horizon, curved and humped by the ridges of the low hills.

At the wheel young Jeff lounged as though he were handling the steering-wheel of a bath-chair; yet there was no hint of carelessness in the behaviour of the car, and he made it difficult for one to remember that most of his last night had been spent in wild drinking. Two miles out, he pulled up before a gate, and when through that, and Bony again in his seat, they had a run of fifteen miles across to the farther side of the paddock and the next gate.

To anyone used to Australian tracks, to ride in Jeff Stanton’s car was an experience to remember. After their recent ride in the ton-truck owned by Dot and Dash, the sergeant and Father Ryan undoubtedly appreciated the difference. The old priest sighed and made himself a little more comfortable.

“I wish,” he said with studied seriousness, “I wish I were a millionaire.”

“I don’t. Why do you wish you were a millionaire?” Jeff inquired with his habitual grimness, which was so often assumed.

“So that I could own a car like this one. May I be forgiven the sin of envy! But why do you not wish I were a millionaire?”

“If you were, Padre, you wouldn’t be here,” Jeff told him simply. “Anyway I offered to present you with a car and you declined it.”

“I know you did, Jeff, but if I had a car I’d have to be after drivin’ it, and I couldn’t be drivin’ it and sittin’ back looking at the scenery at the same time.”

“Well, if that’s all, I’ll supply you with a driver.”

“It’s kind of ye, Jeff, but I’d only be takin’ the man from productive work. No, I’ll be content just to wish I were a millionaire. There’s pleasure in wishing, and less pleasure in having.”

Night had come, the warm caressing night of early summer after the fierce heat of the day. The headlights stabbed the darkness lighting up the track for two hundred yards and revealing the startled amazed rabbits. They jumped, crouched down, or raced ahead of the on-coming, whirring monster; and Bony, watching, never for one second saw fewer than fifty of them. Remembering the poison-cart incident, he turned in his seat and remarked to Jeff:

“The rabbits are very thick about here.”

“Yes, they’re bad this side of the range, and worse on the farther side,” Jeff agreed, also remembering the poison-cart incident. “Poison-carts though are useless on big areas of open country. We’ve had three good years, and during that time they’ve had splendid chances to breed up. Now we’re due for a drought, and King Drought will kill them off. I’ve seen rabbit plagues so many times, and I’ve seen so many thousands of pounds wasted in trying to do what nature does for nothing that I no longer worry about them. The work of a thousand poison-carts would be like dipping a bucket of water from the Indian Ocean.”

“But it is legally compulsory to use them,” interjected Sergeant Morris.

“You’re right, Morris, you’re right,” Jeff admitted, with a mocking sigh. “Someone once said the law was an ass. Whoever he was, he was a wise man. In last week’s paper a man serving a sentence for arson was released because it was proved he was innocent. And he received a free pardon from the fool law. I am wondering what he was pardoned for.”

“For wrongfully occupying gaol space, I expect,” Morris laughed.