Читать книгу Out There: A Romance Of Australia - James Edward Muddock - Страница 3

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THE blazing sun flung out its scorching rays from the cobalt sky, lighting up the billowy landscape with a flame of withering tire. The panting earth, riven and shrivelled, was brown and bare. The hardy gum and box trees drooped and wilted, the water courses had dried up, and the erstwhile picturesque little settlement of Glenbar Run had the appearance of having been swept by a thrice heated blast of a smelting furnace. Like most Australian settlements on the fringe of the Wilderness Glenbar Run, an outpost of civilisation, was a straggling hamlet composed of wooden shanties which might have been shaken up in a gigantic dice box and tumbled out on to the earth in higgledy-piggledy fashion. Hardy men from the old country had come here to tempt fortune and make their homes. They were all in the employ of the owner of the Run. There had been fat years and lean years. In the fat ones horses, sheep and cattle roamed the grass-green, well-watered plains, and brought wealth to their owners; then ensued a period when the heavens dried up, the parched earth turned brown and barren, while cattle and sheep perished by thousands, and their bones, bleached white in the pitiless heat, were scattered over the plains. There had been a two years' drought in the district of Glenbar, and the little handful of settlers bemoaned their fate, and were tempted to curse nature for her cruelty, forgetting the plenteous seasons when the trees put forth their green leaves, when the orchards were golden with ripening fruit, when the rich plains laughed into a harvest, and the cattle roamed knee deep in lush grass. The green years far out-numbered the brown ones, but when the brown ones came they spelt loss for all, ruin for some.

The earliest settlers in that wild region were the Prestons, descendants from hardy English stock, an ancient family who have written their names in something more stable than water. Emigrating from the old country their wandering feet came at last to this edge of the wilderness in a season when all was green, and the narrow meandering river flowed deep in its bed; there they pitched their tent, there they made their home; they sowed and reaped; their four-footed beasts increased and multiplied, and they waxed rich. They were followed in time by a family who boasted of their descent from the Scotch Gordons. The lure of Australia had drawn them from their native heath where the Scottish hills were barren, and life was hard, toil profitless.

Wide and rich as the district of Glenbar was the Prestons considered the Gordons intruders, and resented their settling there; a bitter feud arose between them, and lasted for many years. The Prestons, however, having made good their claims, did more than hold their own, and finally 'the Gordons retreated about forty miles further to the south-east, and founded the township of Gordonstown. But the feud continued between the two families until death claimed the old generation, and a new one began to consolidate that, which in the primitive days, their fathers had begun. The old feud seemed to have been forgotten and Harold Preston, Lord paramount of Glenbar Run, was the close friend of Oliver Gordon of Gordonstown. Harold was Australian born, but Gordon had come from the old country while still a young man and so they had been much together, though Gordon had spent some years in the South, Melbourne and Sydney, and it seemed as if the bond of friendship that knit them would remain unbroken during the span of their mortal lives.

Harold Preston's homestead was a congeries of irregular buildings, including a large and roomy frame house which served the purpose of a dwelling and office, and numerous out-buildings, which now gaped and yawned in the blistering heat, and, excepting the stables, were silent and deserted. It stood at the end of "Main Street," a street only in name, facing the plains that stretched away to the north-west where land and sky seemed to meet. In a roughly boarded room whose wooden walls were hung with guns, revolvers, spears and pouches, Harold sat at a paper-strewn table. The window frames were hung with matting to keep out the blinding sunlight; saddles and harness, spades, rakes and a miscellaneous assortment of other tools were scattered about the floor, while a large oil lamp swung from the wooden ceiling.

Harold was a splendid specimen of a man who looked younger than his twenty-six years. He had a massive frame, muscular and well knit by the hard, open-air life he had led. He was a bushman by instinct and training, and the sun had tanned his skin to the colour of an Arab. Indeed his dark eyes, hair and moustache might have enabled him to pass for an Arab. Attired in a thin woollen shirt, belt, cord breeches and long boots, his arms bared to the shoulders, he looked like a man capable of bearing any hardship, one who would be dauntless in the face of danger. But now as he sat with a number of open letters before him, he seemed thoughtful and troubled. His elbow rested on the arm of his chair, his hand was pressed to his forehead. He was not alone. His manager, Jim Dawkins, who an hour ago had ridden in from Gordonstown with the mail bag, was reclining on a rickety couch, blowing clouds of smoke from a clay pipe. His large felt hat was flung carelessly on the floor, his shirt was wide open at the neck, and the exposed parts of his body were brick-brown. He was the product of a country and mode of life that demand brawn and exceptional powers of endurance. After his long ride in the scorching heat, he had been content to rest and remain silent for half an hour enjoying his pipe while his employer perused his letters.

At last he swung his feet off the couch, and sitting upright, spoke.

"Bad news; eh, boss?" Jim was a man of discernment; he used his eyes to good purpose.

"Yes, Jim. Couldn't be worse. This drought means ruin for me."

"Not as bad as that I hope, boss."

"Yes, Jim, ruin, absolute ruin," said Preston with a sigh. "The loss of fifty thousand sheep and cattle during the last two years, to say nothing of the failure of the crops, had nearly brought me to the end of my tether, and now the final blow has fallen."

Jim jumped to his feet, his great bulky frame heaved.

"God! What is it, boss?" he exclaimed.

For some moments the boss remained silent. His feelings had overcome him, but with an effort he recovered himself.

"Frampton & Heathcote, the solicitors in Melbourne, write to say that their client has instructed them to foreclose the mortgage on my property."

Jim Dawkins' tanned forehead puckered into a frown.

"Blarst 'em," he snapped ferociously.

"The drought has blasted us," the boss rejoined. "They'll flourish, but we shall go under. And this is the end of my toil and struggle." Then with a passionate outburst he pressed his hands to his head and cried: "My God, has nature no pity; will the rain never come?"

"Can nothing be done, boss?" asked Jim in a tone of despair, while his browned face took on an expression of deep concern.

"What is there to do? As you know the remnant of the live stock that I sent down to Melbourne three months ago were in such wretched condition that they only realised half of what I expected to get, and now I have nothing else to sell."

Jim thrust his great sunburnt hands deep into his breeches pockets, and paced up and down for some moments. He was a rugged, honest fellow, but his brain worked slowly though it worked well. Suddenly he swung round, and his blue eyes sparkled.

"Now look you 'ere, boss. I was on this Run in your old father's day, and I've seen ups and downs, but there has been more ups than downs. And you and me has seen ups and downs, but the ups had it till this hellish drought struck us. Now you've got to pull through somehow. I've been a saving chap as you know, and I've got something like a thousand quid stowed away in a Melbourne bank. That's yours, boss, every farthing of it if it's of any use."

Harold seized the hand of his faithful servant and wrung it. His voice was husky as he spoke.

"Jim, you are a white man," he said with visible emotion. "But unless rain comes to-morrow or the next day, or a month hence your thousand pounds would only go into the melting pot, and you, like myself, would be left penniless. No, my friend, I am not going to gamble with your bit which you've won by sweat and toil. I am still young, you are getting into years. This is a big country, and somewhere or other I must begin life over again, or go out and search for gold."

"And what of Miss Mary?" asked Jim with a touching tenderness.

"My God! Yes, what of her," gasped Harold as he reeled, fell into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

Jim Dawkins' face was a picture of distress. He had been a loyal and faithful servant to his master, and beneath his rough exterior beat a big heart. He laid a hand on Harold's shoulder.

"Now look here, boss. You ain't agoing to knock under if I can help it. You've got to take that bit of mine for the gal's sake. Maybe it's only a drop in the bucket, but in these droughty times even a drop's precious. If the rains come in the autumn you can stock the land again, and things will pan out all right, you bet."

Harold caught the hand in both of his and pressed it hard. His eyes were wet. The strong man's soul was stirred to its depths.

"Jim Dawkins," he said with a catch in his voice, "I wish you hadn't mentioned Miss Mary's name; it tempts me to take your savings—the savings of years—when all the time I know it is bound to go as the rest has gone unless God Almighty will open the sluice gates and let the rains fall. But the heavens are dried up, and the blistered land hasn't feed enough to keep a single sheep alive, nor moisture enough to grow a single ear of corn."

"But if the thousand would tide you over for another few months," urged Jim, "and if the rain comes then—"

"If—if—that mighty if. If one could make sure of the rain; if one could make sure of anything in this strange world—If!"

"I tell yer, boss, it will come in the autumn as sure's death," persisted Jim. "I see signs—Hullo, here's a buggy coming up," as the sound of wheels and the hoof beats of a horse fell on his ears. He walked to the window, pulled aside the matting, letting in a flood of blinding light, and shading his eyes from the quivering, white heat-haze he saw a buggy being rapidly driven up "Main Street," and as it came to a stop at the homestead, he let the mat fall, and announced: "It's Miss Mary Gordon, and Mr Oliver Gordon."