Читать книгу The Squatter's Ward - Edward S Sorenson - Страница 4

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The crack of stockwhips and the neighing of horses aroused Mr. Merton from his reverie, and he started up in surprise at the lateness of the hour. He adjusted his cap, and, lighting his pipe, strolled outside. The tired horses were rolling in the soft sand at the stockyard gates, and the men were preparing for supper, as he made his way towards the hut. This stood on the hillside a quarter of a mile below the house. It was an old but commodious building, with slab walls and shingled roof. The interior formed a pleasant contrast to its external roughness and irregularities. There were two long dining-rooms, for whites and blacks, the latter being often in predominance. Both compartments were scrupulously clean, and replete with their complement of furniture, which, though not of an elaborate description, was at least substantial. Adjoining these was a room containing a long narrow table, strewn with various papers and periodicals, while on the walls were a few shelves stocked with a miscellaneous assortment of books. This was the, reading-room, where the rollicking stock-riders read and discussed the news of the world; where exciting debates and arguments were held; where cards, draughts, and other games were played for tobacco and matches when papers and books became "stale"; where many a thrilling tale of the bush was related, and many a stirring song was sung, in the winter months, when a huge log-fire burned briskly in the fireplace at the end, now appropriately filled with a few green bushes standing in an oil drum.

These various apartments were presided over by a West Indian cook named Sam. He was a man six feet one in stature, robust and powerfully built. He was intellectual, too, for an Ethiopian, and, unlike the obtuse aborigines of Australia, possessed the advantages of a liberal education. He was well liked by the white men, but held in abhorrence by the blacks. The dislike was reciprocal, for Sam detested the very sight of a native; and this animosity occasioned no end of broils and bickerings between them. The scholarly Sam classed them as a disjointed link between the orangoutang and the Ethiopian, making sarcastic allusions to their crude gunyahs, and comparing them with the accommodations of the white men.

So far as the latter were concerned, Mr. Richard Merton was considerate to the comforts of his men. He was, nevertheless, in many respects, a stern disciplinarian, and strict in his management. There were no skulkers or loafers on Tipparoo, and no swagmen ever found lodgings there; but there was a Sundown camp on the creek.

The men, on this particular evening, were washing one by one in a tin dish at the back of the hut. This done, they donned their coats and neckerchiefs, and gathered round the table, which was covered with a clean white cloth, and lit with a kerosene lamp. Tipparoo, be it remembered, was a model station—a howling contrast to the majority of stations in New South Wales and Queensland. Enter their grimy, soot-stained huts and observe the stale, soddy bread cast on the bare planks that serve for a table, the sour salt-junk sticking to a rusty tin dish, rusty tin plates and pannikins, rough, stern-visaged men slashing in with might and main, some lighting their pipes at a dirty slush-lamp in the centre of the board, and puffing whiffs of tobacco smoke in the faces of those still eating. These are mostly, poorly-paid, hard-working men, under an employer who looks upon them as no whit superior to beasts, and treats them as such. Their sleeping apartments are noted for filthiness and disorder: for these disheartened men, bundled together on one broad floor, or in bunks one above another like the steerage berths in a coasting ship, have no will or inclination to keep them clean and tidy; their sense of respectability is nullified by station usage.

The knowledge of this, the memory of past hardships, instilled within the men of Tipparoo a sense of gratitude and satisfaction. They were arranging themselves around the table when Mr. Merton entered.

"Well, Sam, you've got a fine family of big boys here," he said.

"Yes, sir," said Sam. "They always come to see me at meal-time."

"And turn their backs upon you between times," laughed Merton. "How did you find the cattle on the Cobar, Ralf?"

"Poor as crows," said a grey-bearded man, who sat at the head of the table. This was the overseer, Ralf Havelock. "The grass is pretty scarce, hardly enough to feed a bandicoot in places; and the water-holes are dryin' up fast. We pulled three cows out of the bog, an' killed two more that were dyin'. They'd been in too long to've got on their legs again."

"What is Rocky Creek like? Any water in that?"

"Not much—just a bit of a pot-hole here an' there, an' that as black as ink. Gettin' boggy, too, some of em."

"That's a bad look-out. We'll have to shift the cattle across to Sandy Hills. I never knew that Cobar country to carry stock through the summer yet. Mostly, you can flog a flea across it."

"When do you think of shiftin' em?" asked Ralf.

"Next week, I suppose. By the bye, have any of you heard of the death of a woman about here lately?"

They had not, and knew of only one woman residing in the vicinity. "My missus is the only woman I know of about here," said Ralf, an' she was alive an' kickin' this mornin'. It couldn't be Mrs. Jed Roff at Goolgolgon—unless she snuffed out within the last day or two."

"No; I fancy this woman lived over about Wyrallah. A blackfellow brought me a child this afternoon, with a note from its father asking me to adopt it, as it was motherless. I don't know who the father is—the blackfellow took his hook before I could question him. He said his name was Wahwon. Have you ever heard of such a blackfellow?"

"No," said Ralf; "but some of the darkeys might know something about him; they're often over Wyrallah way."

Merton stepped into the next room, where the aborigines were supping; but on inquiry found that Wahwon was known to none of them.

"No," he said, again addressing Ralf. "Just come in here a moment. I want to speak to you." He went into the reading-room, followed by Ralf. The lamp on the table was lit, and both sat down on a long stool, the only kind of seating accommodation the apartment boasted. "I thought, perhaps, it would be as well to show you this note," Merton continued, taking, from his pocket-book the slip which had been pinned to the child's dress. "I want to see if our opinions coincide."

He watched the countenance of the overseer as he read: but it told him nothing. Ralf perused it unmoved, and passed it back with the same unconcern he had shown in taking it.

"Well, what's your opinion?" asked Merton.

"You can't take any notice o' that." said Ralf, "it's nothing to go by."

"How do you make that out? I thought it important."

"It isn't genuine, for one thing."

"Not genuine?"

"No. It's signed 'Her father.' "

"Well?"

"Can't you see . . . that note was written by a woman?"

Merton hastily unfolded the note again, and looked carefully over it. It was, indeed, a lady's chirography, a fact, which he and Mrs. Merton had overlooked in their first cursory examination of it. The discovery made him more dubious and anxious than he had been at first. Here was deceit at the very outset; and no reliance could be placed in the contents of a letter written by a feminine hand and purporting to come from a man. Mr. Merton felt that his hopes of success were suddenly crushed. "I didn't notice this before," he said. "The thing's getting worse instead of better."

"You ought to've seen the sham at once. First thing I noticed. An' leavin' the writin' alone, there's the doubt about the mother. The writer says the kid's motherless or believed to be! What the deuce can you make of that?"

"I don't know what to make of it," said Merton. "The father ought to know positively whether she is or is not motherless—unless it's another case of 'strange disappearance.' "

"If it was we'd have heard of it, you may depend. There'd have been a hue an' cry in no time. It would be in the papers, an' everybody would be talkin' about it. The child, of course, would then be well known. That theory won't carry at all. How old is the child?"

"I should think she was about six months old."

"Then we may say the mother was with it for a certainty five months ago—"

"She must have been with it till very recently," Merton interrupted.

"Why so?" asked Ralf.

"They'd have honored me with the charge of it before now if it had been without a mother so far back as that."

"They might've an they mightn't. Just depends. The question is, what became of her if the father doesn't know whether she's dead or alive? If a man dictated the letter, an' there's any truth in its contents, it points to a deep mystery. What's your opinion?"

"I'm almost afraid to speak my mind. I'd rather hear yours."

"Well, to be candid," said Ralf, "I think it must be an illegitimate."

Merton winced, for his own thoughts were spoken in those words.

"I'll tell you for why," continued Ralf. "We'll suppose it to be legitimate, an' the mother deserted it an' her husband for another man. Such a thing couldn't very well be kept quiet, an' would be known to everybody. Nothing gets about quicker than scandal, or is harder to keep from leakin' out. If she disappeared any other way, the result would be the same, as I said before. The father's plight would be known, too, an' he'd be more likely to give the youngster to some woman he knew than to send it in such a way to a stranger as if he didn't care what became of it; an' above all, he wouldn't trust it to a blackfellow to carry through the bush as you might a poddy lamb. Now we'll take it as base-born, in which case it wouldn't be in charge of a father. The mother wouldn't be particular how she got rid of it as long as it was off her hands. Them sort o' mothers always want to get rid o' their kids, an' wouldn't think twice o' givin' it to a blackfellow to take to someone as the gel was brought to you. That's the way I look at it."

Merton groaned inwardly, and returned the note to his pocket-book. "It looks plausible enough," he said, "that I've been burdened with the offspring of some wretched woman. What am I to do? I can't rest with these doubts—these suspicions."

"Perhaps it'd be as well to have a look round before decidin' what to do with it. You might find out something—might run across the blackfellow again. It's a great pity you let him slip you up."

"That's where the shoe pinches, Ralf. But who would have supposed the devil would have run away like that?"

"He must have been put up to it," said Ralf.

"You think the mother, or father, instructed him to act like that?"

"Seems like it. What would be his reason else for not tellin' you all about it? An' blacks generally hang about, too."

"If it is as you say, we'll have a job to find him. Anyhow, I think it will be best to have a general search before doing anything else," said Merton. He meditated for some time before he resumed. "You'd better take some one with you and go to Wyrallah to-morrow, Ralf. He said he came from over that way. It might have been only a blind, but still it won't be any harm go over. Make inquiries, and see if you can find out anything bearing on the case. Bill Mayne can take a couple of others with him and go across to the mountain where Wren and his men are cutting pine. They would very likely know Wahwon, if he's been knocking about there. They can go then to Tillawong, and round home by Minara. I suppose that'll be as much as you'll be able to do. It'll be easy enough for you to recognise the black if you chance across him. He's middle-aged, and has a slight stoop in the shoulders. His dress when I saw him consisted of a patched pair of tweed trousers, torn Crimean shirt, and a worn out, chocolate-colored felt hat. He has a fairish long beard, going grey, and a big crooked nose. You'll know him by that and his clothes, for he's certain to have nothing to change with. Be ready to start away by daylight. You can get dinner at Mogilwooga on your way back."

"Will you be going out yourself?" said Ralf. "We may as well know each other's route, so as not to waste time goin' to the same places."

"Yes," said Merton. "I'll take Mumby with me and go to Goolgolgon and Badginbilly."

"There's a camp or two down the Bargo might be worth your while to have a look at." Ralf suggested. "There's no sayin' but what he might have dropped in there goin' back."

"I mean to have a look round there," Merton answered. "There's a pretty big tribe camped not far from Back Coorawynbah. They've been there a good while too. Maybe Wahwon is not unknown to them."

After a few more instructions to Ralf, and a word or two to Bill Mayne and Mumby, the Tipparoo tracker, Merton went back to the house to consult his wife on the new aspect of affairs.

"It seems to me that what is really wanted is a policeman and a doctor," said the lady, on being informed of the latest developments.

"What do you want with a doctor?" Mr. Merton inquired.

"To go round and see who's been . . . who's responsible . . ."

"I see! I think we'll defer that till a later date, my dear. For the present, we'll consider things—well, simply mysterious."

"Oh, that's just like a man!" Mrs. Merton exclaimed. "I hope they're not to remain 'mysterious' very long. I hate mysteries!"