Читать книгу The Squatter King - A Romance of Bush Life - Edward S Sorenson - Страница 8

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Sid was cleaning his gear in the saddle room. The place was clean and tidy, and everything in it spic-and-span. Berkley had drilled him rigidly from the commencement. Always natty in himself, Berkley saw that everything under his control was kept in proper trim; and with it all he was as fussy and fidgetty as a crusty old maid. If he detected a dry bridle rein or girth, an unclean saddle-flap, or a dirty stirrup-iron, he hauled it down savagely, and inquired of the negligent rouseabout what he meant by it. The stockmen looked after their own riding gear, the carters their own harness; but under Berkley's care was the buggy harness, the saddles and bridles of the boss, the overseer and the girls, besides his own and Sid's, all of which had bright stirrups and bits, providing plenty of occupation for odd hours and wet days! Loitering and idleness on the part of his assistant were intolerant to Berkley; he could not content himself at anything if there was a suspicion in his mind that the one person he was privileged to boss was not working.

Just then Berkley was on his bunk at the other end of the shed, deeply absorbed in a racing novel. On the table, convenient to his hand, were the captain's heavy spurs and a piece of chamois leather. The door, which faced the horseyard, was shut. If the captain or the overseer happened on the scene, Berkley would step forth, industriously polishing the persuaders.

Ben Bruce, who had finished early, sauntered in where Sid was engaged, and perched himself on a saddle-rack.

"I think you'll soon be done with that job, Sid," he remarked, lighting his pipe.

"Why?"

"We want another hand for mustering; an' the captain was inquiring after Brumby, the black boy, this morning. He's kept Brumby since he was a piccaninny, an' he reckons it's about time Brumby began to put something on the other side of the ledger."

"I'll, pity him if he's under Berkley," said Sid.

"Berkley won't do what he likes with Brumby," Ben declared. "A job's nothing to Brumby; he'd sooner be without it of anything; and if Berkley's too hard on him he'll clear back to camp without asking leave—"

He stopped abruptly as Myee entered, and took the pipe from his mouth as though he had been doing wrong in smoking it. She nodded, pleasantly to him, and as she was passing she half stopped and looked again; while Ben, in marked contrast to his wonted serenity, looked mightily confused.

Sid was applying himself energetically to his task. It was his first meeting with Myee since the incident in the garden, and he had some misgivings as to his reception.

"You're very busy all at once!"

She stood before him, straight, imperious, a light stockwhip held behind her, a gloved hand gripping each end of the polished gidgee handle.

"Are you going for the cows?" she asked as he straightened up.

"In a minute or two," stooping over his work again and rubbing furiously.

"Will you saddle my pony for me, please?"

The wintry chill of her voice was decidedly discouraging.

Sid threw down the rag he was using, and reached for a double-reined bridle hanging on a peg behind him.

"When you're ready," she added. "I am going with you."

She looked straight into his face without the tremor of an eyelash; the mouth was firm, but a twinkle lurked in the fearless blue eyes.

All the while Ben watched her with a peculiar light in his face that suggested a deep desire for something he could not reach, an eagerness for something he could not have. It seemed to the young fellow, who knew something of his moods, that he yearned to clasp the girl in his arms, yet shrank from her. As she went out to the yard he drew the back of his hand across his wrinkled brow as if in an effort to brush away some painful memory. He slipped off the saddle rack without speaking, and walked slowly to the door. There he stopped short, and his form stiffened. Almost instantly he stepped back, slewing into the corner. He stood there looking at a pair of spurs as Sid went into the yard to catch the horses.

A trooper had ridden up to the gate and dismounted. It transpired subsequently that he was looking for a blackfellow who had killed another in a spear duel near Tibbonong.

When Sid re-entered the saddle room Ben had vanished. He knew the man had not gone out by the door, as that opened into the yard. The only other way he could have got out was by climbing over the slab partition into the chaff room, at one end of which was a stack of hay reaching nearly to the roof. Why he should have done that was a puzzle that occupied his thoughts until he was ready to start.

Myee, who rode man-fashion, mounted without assistance. She was no sooner outside the gate than she set off at a gallop, and she never drew rein until she reached the bottom corner of the home paddock, two miles from the yard. As she pulled up she leaned forward and laughed.

"I've been wanting that gallop for a week,"—with a roguish glance at her companion.

"We've passed the cows a mile," he remonstrated.

"What odds! We'll gallop back to them."

"Let the poor brute get his breath first," Sid enjoined. "There's no hurry."

"That's good. I wish we had all day and were going right away over the hills. If they would only let me go mustering."

"You'd have to camp out—"

"That would be delicious. I camp out sometimes in the garden when the nights are hot."

"By yourself!"

"Wilga and I—and sometimes Miss Danz. It's just lovely under the stars; but it would be much nicer away out in the glorious bush, right away where there's nothing to remind you of civilisation and its horrid conventionalities, its narrowness and hypocrisies; where everything is natural and pure and sweet."

"Right back to the primitive," suggested Sid; "the life of the aborigines?"

"Not that; but I love nature; I like to be out among the wild birds and the flowers and trees. I would rather study them than weary my poor brain with Latin and Greek and French. After an hour of French grammar I want to race the wind—to climb a tree"—with a defiant side-glance at her cavalier. "My poor dad never bothered with foreign languages. He used to say that he could swear quite enough in English."

"Your father is dead, isn't he?"

"The law proclaimed him dead," answered Myee. "But lots of people say the law is an ass."

"And isn't he really dead?"

"He disappeared—how or where we don't know. His horse came back with trailing bridle, and a stirrup-leather missing from the saddle. It was supposed that he was thrown, or perished in the bush; but no trace of him was ever found. We were at Byndoora, our own squattage on the Logan River, at the time. My uncle, Bede Lowan looks after it now; mother left it and went to stay with the Brynes at Mooban. That was before the Captain bought Kanillabar. Dr. Cudgen was also staying there; in the end he purchased Mooban. . . and mother married him. The Brynes came to Kanillabar soon after, and I came with them."

"That's strange," said Sid, musingly. "We've been tarred with the one brush, you and I; for my father was also lost in the bush."

"I suppose he is legally dead, too?"

"No; something seems to tell me that he is living with the blacks—far out somewhere; and perhaps some day I will find him. Don't you ever think that your father might be living too?'

"It's hardly possible. I imagine all kinds of things that might have befallen him; and sometimes I dream that he lives, and then I hope that he is dead and at rest."

"Why?" he asked, softly, struck by the grave expression that had come into her face.

"Don't you think it would be awful if he turned up some day—for him?"

"Why?" he asked again.

"If you were married and by some means got separated from your wife for years, would you like to return and find her the wife of another man?"

"No," said Sid, "I wouldn't like it; neither would the other fellow."

By this time they were rounding up the cows. They had barely got them together when Myee exclaimed: "Look! there's a dingo!" and set after him at full gallop. Sid followed, watching the hard-riding, reckless equestrienne with deep concern as she dashed through clumps of small trees and bounded over logs. The pony was speedy, and did his very utmost in response to her urging hands and furiously jabbing little heel; but the dingo had too much start, and escaped in a fringe of brush on the creek bank.

"What a pity we didn't see him sooner and turn him into the open," she said regretfully. Her cheeks were glowing, her hair tumbled about her neck.

"Look here!" Sid objected; "this won't do, you know. You'll be getting a buster."

"Well, that will be my funeral, won't it?"

"But I am supposed to be looking after you when you're out with me," he protested.

Her burst of laughter rang in silvery, peals along the scrub.

"Dear monitor!" she said with mock seriousness. "I must consider your feelings. . . . I'm sure I must be a dreadful responsibility."

"We're a mile from the cows again," he observed irrelevantly.

"Oh, those cows!" And again her merry laugh rippled forth. "Never mind; we'll get them home before morning."

The shades of the trees were stretching across the grey grass, and in the cooling air and the softening light of the waning afternoon she rode with radiant face, her soul exulting. Sitting straight, her body swaying slightly to the movements of the horse, she gazed beyond the home paddocks, into the blue immensity where the wedgetail eagles flew, with the wistful look of a little savage in exile. For a child of the wild was she, in whom the heredity of far off ages pulsed strongly, and whose heart rebelled against the conventions of her own times. The joy and the freedom of the bush were in her veins, and she would gladly have tarried till daylight died.

As they neared the road, with their mob stepping briskly homeward, Jake, the mailman, came jogging across the flat. He was the only regular visitor to the outback settlements, a welcome one wherever he went, who arrived within the hour, week after week. He could claim that, through winter and summer, in drought and flood, he had never been an hour late anywhere on his long and lonely round. Unofficially he was general messenger, and a travelling intelligence bureau for the backblocks. Jake talked to everybody he met, from the baby in arms to the hoary centenarian, to friends and strangers alike, to black and white of both sexes. If he had no news to tell, he filled the breach with pleasantries, or a bush yarn.

It was part of Sid's duties to look after his horses, and to have a fresh relay ready fed and groomed in the stable, for after an early tea he rode on to Bogalby, another neighbouring squattage.

"Hulloa, Sid! You seem to be doin' well in this country," was Jake's greeting, and he looked across at the girl with one eye shut.

"Not bad," Sid responded. "How are you?"

"Well, I'm not as young as you, boy; for all that I wouldn't mind takin' it on myself."

His gaze was still directed towards the girl, a grin on his face. Myee was chasing in a truant calf at the side.

"You can commission me any time you want a bit of jewellery," he added.

"What would I want jewellery for?" Sid inquired innocently.

Jake held up a finger, on which was an opal ring. "When a young chap and a pretty girl go cow-hunting simultaneously," he replied, it generally comes to jewellery."

"If her people thought that, she wouldn't be here," was the young chap's rejoinder.

"The old ones sometimes forget when they were young," Jake reflected. "She's rather inclined to have her own way, though, isn't she?"

"She likes plenty of rein; but she's a good girl."

"Of course she is," decisively.

"Jolly pretty girl, too, Sid," with a quizzical side look at his companion. "And she knows her way about, the same little Miss Norrit."

Myee now came up; and they rode along together, discussing the news that the genial mailman had gathered in his travels.