Читать книгу Road to Adventure - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 6

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THE boy sitting on the gate-post looked lonely. To be perched upon a gate-post is in the nature of things a solitary occupation, unless there is someone on the other post: and in this case not only was the second post untenanted, but no living thing was in sight. Behind him was a small house, half-hidden in a scrubby orchard where stunted apples clung among yellowing leaves. In front the road ran east and west: a bush road, very wide, the ribbon of rutty track winding snake-like among low gum-trees that hid the wire fence on the further side. Like everything else, the track was lonely.

The apple-orchard clothed the ridge on which the house stood—if so dreary a little orchard could be said to clothe anything. Beyond it the ground sloped gently down to a valley where a slender creek trickled among boulders. At one place it had been laboriously widened to catch water enough to make a drinking-spot for cattle, since in summer the creek was apt to trickle away altogether. But no cattle were visible, although there were tracks in the soft mud near the hole. Bush homesteads have usually fowls pecking about the sheds and yards: but not this homestead. So quiet was it, so lifeless, that it seemed as though it had driven the boy out as far as possible—to the gate beyond which he might not go.

He was a slender-limbed boy of nine, with well-cut features and dark, anxious eyes beneath a crop of yellow curls. The curls badly needed cutting, and their owner hated them heartily. They had earned him many nicknames, only less repugnant to him than the admiring epithets bestowed on him by effusive ladies. Most of the fights in which Hugh Russell had taken part—and they were many—had been connected with his curls. He regarded them, not without good reason, as unseemly growths for a boy. It was some offset to such a handicap in life that his father had taught him a good deal about using his fists and developing his muscles.

Father did not, Hugh knew, care for curls. It was mother who had been proud of them. Hugh remembered that, among many other things, although he was only six when mother had died. He knew—somehow, for they did not talk about it—that it was because of mother that father did not cut them as close to the scalp as Hugh wished. And lately father had not bothered to cut them at all. He was too busy thinking.

There had been a great deal to think about since they came to live at the house in the orchard, more than a year ago. At that time they had been very hopeful. There was more money then, and Hugh had had his pony to ride to school: and father had expected to make a good living out of apples: having failed to make one at several other things. They planned to grow vegetables, too, and to keep bees; there were great talks about all they would do as Hugh grew bigger.

But the man who sold the orchard to them was a better business man than father. Father saw trees white and pink with blossom, and in the simplicity of his heart he thought that where there was such beautiful blossom there would be beautiful apples. This does not follow, however. The apples were a poor kind, unmarketable. The soil of the little farm was hopeless for vegetables—or anything else. Even the bees caught a bee-disease, and died: and the hives had to be burned. And little by little the money in the bank vanished.

Other things went when, in the second season, codlin-moth spoiled the poor crop. The buggy went: most of the furniture: and then Hugh’s pony. Nobody could tell how cruelly that hurt. Hugh had to practise not thinking about Tinker—as he practised not thinking about mother. Then the calf was sold, and all the fowls and ducks. And that day father had ridden off early, driving the cow, which was the only thing left to sell—unless you counted old Nugget, the scraggy bay horse. Hugh did not see how they really could sell Nugget, for he was their only link with the outer world.

He could not now go to school, for it was too far to walk. When father went to the township he had to remain alone: not very cheerful for a boy of nine, with only the magpies and kookaburras for company. Father always came back as quickly as possible. But to-day, because of driving the cow, he had been a very long time: and towards dusk Hugh could bear the silence of the house no longer, and had come to sit on the gate-post and watch the road. It was really listening more than watching: straining his ears to catch, through the trees, the first faint hoof-beats. He would have picked out old Nugget’s canter among a hundred horses.

If he had anything to do it would not have been so bad. But there were no jobs. Even father had scarcely any now. There was enough firewood to last a month, for it had only to be picked up under the trees on the road. The table was ready for the evening meal, but as there was nothing in the house to eat except half a loaf of stale bread and the scrapings of a pot of jam, that did not take long. Hugh had finished the lessons father had set—doing them with a thoroughness possible only to a small boy with nothing whatever to occupy him. He had read all his story books, over and over again, so that they no longer tempted him. There were no neighbours within three miles. So he had “mooched about” until his legs were tired, wandering in the scrub, climbing trees, practising the gymnastics father had taught him on low, smooth branches. After these things failed there seemed only the gate-post left. There, at least, was a chance of seeing someone. It might be a bullock-driver, plodding along in the dust beside his crawling team, or the cart from the store in the township, delivering goods to bush homesteads; sometimes a jinker, with a good pony in the shafts. Hugh hoped for that, for he had an eye for a horse.

This afternoon, as if to help him, there were several riders on good horses; quite an unusual number. It puzzled him, until one man, pulling up near him to fill his pipe, offered the information that he was going to see a Circus in a township miles and miles away. “Long ride,” he said, “but I hear it’s worth it. Anyhow, I’d go a long way to see any sort of a Circus.”

Hugh agreed emphatically to that. Always, since he was a tiny boy, a Circus had been his dream of bliss. He had seen a good many, when times were better, for father shared his love of horses; and the Circuses of those days were often small, but their horses were always good, especially in a country like Australia, where nearly everyone was a keen judge of a horse. Hugh had taught Tinker several of the tricks he had seen in the good old days that seemed so far back to his nine-year-old mind now. Tinker was quick and intelligent; it had made it all the harder to part with him, especially as Joe Clarke’s father had bought him, and Joe, as he knew well, had no hands and thought a bridle was for keeping you on your pony. Hugh had visions of Tinker’s tender mouth, sore under Joe’s handling, and he was glad he had not to go to school to see it.

When he heard that Daisy, the cow, was to be sold, a great and beautiful idea had come to him. Perhaps, if she fetched a lot of money, father would be able to buy Tinker back! He hugged the dream to him for several days before he ventured to speak to father about it; in fact, it had been only that morning that he had timidly brought out the words. And then he wished he hadn’t. Father had looked at him with a kind of amazed anger, and said, “Buy the pony back?—why, you little ass, we’ve got to eat her!”

Hugh had shrunk back, puzzled—with visions of Daisy as he had seen cows in the butcher’s shop, hung up; of father and himself eating steadily at great joints of beef. Father had laughed in a sorry way that didn’t sound like laughing, and explained that all the money Daisy brought must go into dull things like oatmeal and flour and jam; and Hugh had felt worse than ever, because he saw that father was dreadfully worried, and that he hadn’t meant to be unkind. Father never was unkind: only nowadays he generally seemed to live in a world ever so far away, where Hugh could not go. Not a happy world, judging by father’s eyes.

The early morning talk had stayed with him all day. It had left a nasty cold feeling round his heart. For if Daisy were so necessary to buy things like oatmeal, what would they do when Daisy was eaten up? There was no other cow. He tried to put it from him by believing that she would bring a great deal of money; but that was not convincing, for he knew enough about cows to realise that Daisy was not a valuable specimen. It took such a very little while to milk her, and her bones stuck out.

He was thinking about this when at last the sound for which he had been longing fell on his ears: a hoof-beat on a stony part of the road. It was quite near, and he knew that it was father coming, although he was not, as usual, cantering. But something within him told him it was father, and he jumped down from the post and opened the gate, straining his eyes to pierce the tree-shrouded dusk.

Father and Nugget loomed up out of the gloom and turned in at the gate.

“Thanks, Hugh,” said Father. He dismounted stiffly, handling the tucker-bag with care. “You can let him go. Been all right?”

“Oh, yes. Did you get a lot of money for Daisy, Father?”

“There wasn’t any rush for her,” father said, grimly. “But I got something. Hurry up, Hugh: I’m hungry. I’ve had nothing to eat since I left.”

“Didn’t you get dinner in the township?” Hugh asked, wide-eyed.

“No.”

“Oh, Father—you should! Why——”

“Oh, cut along,” said the man, wearily.

Hugh unsaddled Nugget and let him go as quickly as possible. When you did this for Tinker you talked to him all the time, and Tinker almost talked back: but Nugget was not a sympathetic horse. He did not appreciate conversation; all he wanted to do was to get away and roll. Hugh left him rolling, looking very ridiculous with his long, knobby legs in the air, and hurried in to the house.

The kettle was already purring on the hob: he had filled it long ago. Father was washing his hands. Hugh unpacked the tucker-bag, which was always his job. Bread, butter, tea, flour, jam and a wet, clammy parcel that turned out to be corned-beef. No sweets: he looked very carefully in the corners of the bag, where there was nearly always a little twisted-up package of bull’s-eyes. There were none to-night. And there was another thing missing. His small voice piped up.

“Didn’t you get tobacco, Father?”

“No.”

“But you’re right out!”

“Oh, I’m going to knock off smoking,” said father, quietly.

Hugh stared at him. This was rather terrifying. He knew what father’s pipe meant to him: how often he had said that he’d rather go hungry than without a smoke. But there was something in father’s face that held back the words that leaped to his tongue. He put away the groceries and made the tea.

They ate bread and jam. Hugh had hoped for bacon, but that was another of the things that hadn’t come out of the tucker-bag. Having had bread and jam for breakfast and dinner he was not very hungry for it now: and tea without milk was, he thought privately, horrid, though it was no use to say anything—he would have to get used to it.

Father was very silent, lost in thought. He roused himself once or twice to talk about the cattle-sale and the townships, and he listened when Hugh told him about the man who was going to the Circus. But these efforts at entertainment died away very quickly; and as soon as father had finished—he did not eat much, in spite of being so hungry—he got up and walked out into the darkness.

Hugh cleared the table and washed up slowly. Then he stood on the verandah, listening to father’s slow footfalls, up and down, on the track to the shed. On an ordinary evening he would have run out to join him. But this was not an ordinary evening. There was something dreadful about it.

He went to bed, at last, as there seemed nothing else to do, and sleep might take away the dreadful feeling. Father came in after he was in bed. He saw the tall form in the doorway, and a wild hope sprang up within him that he had come to say that everything was really all right.

But father couldn’t: Hugh felt that. He said, “Hullo, old man—turned in?” and came to tuck him up and kiss him: and Hugh hugged him very hard, without saying anything.

Father lit the lamp in the living-room, and Hugh heard the scrape of his chair as he drew it up to the table. He lay for a long time watching the dim light that came into his room. Then he dropped off to sleep.

He woke with a start. It seemed much later, for he was cold, and he pulled up a blanket. The light was still showing: and presently he heard father’s voice, low, with a kind of entreaty in it.

“He’s talking to someone!” said Hugh to himself. “Wonder who it is?”

He slipped out of bed and went softly on his bare feet down the passage. There was no one with father, who was sitting at the table with his head in his hands, staring at a letter that lay before him. As Hugh peeped at him in bewilderment, he spoke again.

“If I only could! What on earth am I going to do!”

Hugh had a sudden feeling that he was looking at something he was not meant to see. He turned and crept away, trembling. Back in bed, he pulled the blanket over his head to shut out the voice, and said a quivering little prayer, over and over: “Oh God, please don’t let father be worried!” He was still saying it when he fell asleep.