Читать книгу The Squatter King - A Romance of Bush Life - Edward S Sorenson - Страница 6

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When tea was over in the hut, Sid commenced to fix up a broken bunk for himself by the light of a malodorous slush-lamp. The room, which looked out on the long grey road he had travelled, was walled with rough slabs, between some of which strips of bagging and pieces of paper were stuffed to block the view from adjoining rooms. Its barrenness and ruggedness gave him a twinge of homesickness, for what he had hitherto known was luxurious in comparison. Cobwebs hung from the rafters, and a mosquito-hunting bat fluttered about under the shingle roof. But for the presence of one who had been there long enough to accumulate an unsightly heap of old boots, he might have imagined it to be a long-deserted tenement.

His room-mate was Ben Bruce, the head stockman, who was stretched on his bunk against the opposite wall, smoking a black clay pipe.

Ben was one of those quiet, reclusive men who whet the curiosity of others, and at the same time discourage inquisitiveness. He kept much to himself, and however freely others around him might exchange confidences in camp and yard, he never mentioned anything material concerning his own history. Quiet of speech and manner, more gentlemanly in appearance than the captain, and generally accredited with more learning, he was naturally a considerable mystery to the rank and file. There was no doubt in the minds of all that he was "a bit eccentric."

He was an oldish man, apparently 50, tall and sturdy of figure, with a slight droop in the shoulders. He was carelessly dressed, the loose-fitting shirt and coat appearing as if they had been pitchforked on to the wearer. Despite this there was an unmistakable air of good breeding about him—gentility run to seed.

"I hope my hammering doesn't annoy you," spoke Sid.

"Not at all, lad; you make yourself comfortable. Nobody goes to sleep here that fifteen-two, fifteen-four racket ends in the next room."

"Gambling?"

"For tobacco an' matches."

"You don't play?"

"No, boy; an' if you're wise you'll keep out of it, too."

"I don't smoke," said Sid, "so the stakes would be of no use to me."

"Don't learn, boy; it's a dirty habit," said Ben, puffing great clouds from his black pipe.

When he had made the lower atmosphere insufferable to the mosquitoes, he turned again to the amateur carpenter.

"This your first job?"

"Yes."

"I judged as much, by the look of your hands," said Ben, eyeing the white skin and the well-manicured finger-nails. "The work isn't killing," he went on, "but it's a wearying stretch to sundown for the beginner."

"What time do you start in the morning?" asked Sid, speaking with his mouth full of nails.

"You'll have to be stirring about daylight—to run the horses up, an' then the cows. Are you good at wakin'?"

"Not at that hour, I'm afraid."

"I'll give you a call. Sid's your name, isn't it?"

"Sid Warri."

"Warri'?" said Ben musingly. "That was the name of the woman who was here before the boss's time."

"She's my mother," Sid told him. "We, used to own this place once."

Ben turned sharply on to his elbow. "Used to own the squattage," he repeated; "an' you've come back to it humping your drum!"

Sid nodded.

"Well, well!" with staring, meditative eyes. "What did the captain say?"

"I don't think he knew me; he didn't ask my name."

"I don't suppose it would have made any difference, anyhow. There's no sentiment about the old captain; though, mind you, he isn't a bad boss, take him all round. I've heard some ugly things said of him, but he's always acted straight with me, an' I speak of a man as I find him. He's a rough, hard old nail, there's no two ways about that; but if he sees you've got grit an' go in you, he'll think a lot more of you than if you were merely the son of a duke. By-the-bye, you had a sister?"

"She's living in Wonnaroo with mother."

"Did she ever tell you anything about Berkley Hart?"

"The groom?"

"He's groom, an' something more; he has charge of the home paddocks. You'll be under him for a time."

"I've never heard her speak of him."

"He was a good while with your father," Ben went on, "an' one day your sister caught him helpin' himself to some tobacco in the store. The boss was in the office close by. She ran in an' told him, and, of course, there was a shindy, and Berkley was kicked off the place without his cheque. He never got over that, though he wasn't seen again after the blow-up till the Brynes came here. He turned up then as good as new, an' the captain put him on. He was inquirin' about your people, an' wanted to know if the old chap had been found or anything heard of him. He's a bad lot."

"He ought to be pleased to have me for a rouseabout," Sid observed, with a grim smile at the irony of the situation.

"Oh, that will suit him right down to the ground." said Ben.

Sid drove in a few more nails, shaking and weighing on the creaking thing between times to try the strength of it.

"Whoever left this bit of furniture behind didn't lose much," he remarked as he finished.

"He left everything behind that he owned, the man who used to sleep there," said Ben. "He's sleeping on the sandhill now."

"Dead?"

"Aye; kicked by that bay horse that slung you this afternoon."

"Oh, strike!" cried Sid. "If I'd known that I wouldn't have mended the dashed thing."

"You're not superstitious, are you?"

"No; but I don't like dead men's beds."

"His ghost won't worry you," said Ben. "Poor old Sam Blake! He was a quiet chap, who never made any trouble when he was alive, an' he ain't likely to be a nuisance now he's dead. Talkin' of ghosts," he continued, after a pause, "reminds me of when I first came here. They sent me to Glenboon, one of the sub-squattages—a lonesome place, where you never saw a white man except at mustering time. A tribe of blacks that circulated about the run rather emphasised the loneliness of anything. They were friendly enough when you took them right, but the awfullest thieves out. They touched me for several odds an' ends, an' we had a few rows in consequence. Still, I'd 'ave got along all right with them; but it happened a tree fell on one of their tribe an' killed him. They don't look on death as being natural or accidental; if one lived for a hundred an' fifty years, an' then was struck by lightnin', they'd put it down to witchcraft, an' someone would have to go under. An old wiseacre sits on the grave night after night, till he sees the churri-gurri—the spirit of the slayer. He always sees him an' he always recognises him. Then the warriors arm themselves an' go after the culprit.

"Well, when the old villain at Glenboon set to watchin' he saw me. Of course, I was condemned at once. They reckoned I'd practised some wizard trick an' made that tree fall just where Binghi was.

"A gin warned me of what was in the wind, an' I prepared to receive the avengers. I had a double-barrelled gun an' two revolvers in the hut. But I didn't want to do any harm with them; so I dug a shallow hole 20ft from the door, drove two small pegs in the bottom of it, an' tied one of the revolvers firmly to them with greenhide. After tyin' a fishing-line to the trigger I laid a piece of bark over it, an' covered that with a shavin' of turf. The line was run carefully through the grass, an' passed between two slabs of the hut. The other revolver I planted the same distance from the back wall an kept the gun inside.

"They came at daylight—about twenty of them, creeping up from the back. I waited till they'd passed the buried revolver, then 'bang' she went. I tell you, it would have done your eyes good to 'ave seen their faces. Some leaped into the air, an' two of them fell down. The shot blew a bit of turf out, an' smoke was coming out of the ground. They couldn't understand that; they pointed at it an' yabbered in whispers. Then one a little bolder than the others sneaked towards it to see what it was. I let him get right up to it, an' then— 'bang' she went again. A tuft of grass flew up an' hit him in the face. He gave a spring an' a yell, an' fell over backwards. He was up again in a second, an' the whole crowd rushed round to the front. Just as they got there I pulled the other line. Bang, bang, bang! with a couple of seconds' interval between each. Well, you never saw a party make such a frantic scamper for elsewhere as they did. They're deadly afraid of anything they can't understand. They ran for their natural lives."

Throughout this recital there was not the remotest suggestion of a smile on his face; he spoke as solemnly as if he were telling of his grandfather's funeral.

"Did they come back?" asked Sid.

"Not a one of the tribe ever showed near the hut afterwards," said Ben.

He broke a splinter from the wall, and leaning over lit his pipe again from the lamp. Then, in a listening, thoughtful manner he watched the tobacco smoke curling towards the ceiling, while the card-players talked and argued and thumped the table in the next room; and from the house came the subdued tones of a piano, and now and again the high notes of a feminine voice.

Watching the recumbent stockman, Sid saw the expression of his face grow momentarily tense and then relax, as though human eyes looked at him from the smoke wreaths, and spirit voices spoke to him from the depths of vanished years. Or was it the voice or the song he faintly heard that played upon his emotions?