Читать книгу Billabong's Daughter - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 4

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DARKNESS had nearly fallen when Wally Meadows came cantering down the homestead paddock at Billabong, and pulled up at the gate. For a moment he sat motionless, listening: but no sound came out of the gathering gloom, save that, in a tree across the flats, a mopoke was beginning its monotonous call. Wally smiled a little, remembering certain homesick evenings in England when nightingales had poured out their song around him, and when he would have given them all to hear the dreary double note of the mopoke. Nightingales were all very well in their way, and you wouldn’t really feel satisfied unless you heard one, when you got to England. But mopokes were simply part of an Australian night: just to remember the queer song made you think of the gum-trees, gaunt shadows against a star-lit sky, and brought to your nostrils the aromatic scent of their leaves. Nightingales were certainly wonderful; so were Melba and Tettrazini, only you didn’t want to hear them every day. But no Australian ever grew tired of a mopoke.

So Wally Meadows thought, at any rate; and with one side of his mind he liked to hear the long “Mo—poke! Mo—poke!” that came drifting across the flats. But the other side was worried at the moment, and his brows were knitted in the effort of listening, as, having passed through the gate, he checked his impatient horse. Norah had said she would be home at six; it was now nearly eight, and there was no sign of her. Wherefore, Wally had left Jim to put the cattle they had bought into a little paddock, and had cantered down to the gate to see if there were any sign of a damsel in distress.

Presently there came to him the drumming of distant hoofs, and he straightened his shoulders with a little sigh of relief. That was Garryowen: he would know his gallop among a thousand. So he opened the gate again: and when, in a few moments, Norah checked her speed near him, she saw his tall figure looming in the darkness. The horses greeted each other with shrill whinnies.

“Is it you, Jim?”

“No, it’s me,” said Wally ungrammatically. “Jim’s putting twenty-five new bullocks to bed, and tucking them in, and I’m a search-party. We began to think something had happened to you, Nor.”

“I’m so sorry,” Norah said. “Was Dad worried?”

“Well, a bit. If his leg hadn’t been troubling him I fancy he’d have been after you himself. He thought you might have foregathered with Jim and me, and he wasn’t too happy when he found you hadn’t. Nothing wrong, was there, Norah?”

“No—only a very mild adventure. I’ll tell you about it when we get in; let’s hurry now, Wally. You were a brick to come to meet me.”

Wally did not answer this, having other views on the subject, and together they raced up the smooth grass beside the wheel-track. Norah suddenly broke into a song as they rode, and Wally joined in: the cheery voices carried, as she knew they would, to the homestead verandah, where her father watched uneasily. From above Jim’s voice floated down.

“Hear them, Dad?”

“Yes; nothing wrong there,” David Linton said, much relieved. “I wonder what has kept her. Tell them to change as quickly as they can, Jim: you must all be starving for tea.” He turned and went back into the lighted room behind him; a tall man, with grizzled hair and beard, but with shoulders as erect as those of a youngster. Just now he limped on a stick, his horse having put its foot into a rabbit-hole and fallen with him a few weeks before. He had tried to make light of the injury, but it had been painful enough, and promised to keep him out of the saddle for weeks to come: a prospect by no means acceptable to David Linton. He had turned over most of the management of Billabong to Jim: but he loved the run, and, day after day, mounted on his great black horse, Monarch, he rode about it, watching his big shorthorn bullocks, keeping an eye on the fencing, riding along the river to watch for fresh signs of the intrusion of the rabbits they fought perpetually. Jim and Wally did all these things, and many others, and did them well. He did not question their management. But because he loved Billabong David Linton loved to do them, too.

Jim and Wally came in presently, laughing at some joke of Wally’s: well-groomed fellows, with the drilled shoulders that spoke of four years of war. Jim’s great stature made him notable in any crowd: Wally, shorter and slighter, was yet over six feet. He had the swift litheness of an animal; his gay brown eyes, that saw everything, were rarely without a twinkle. Nothing came amiss to Wally Meadows: he laughed at life just as he had laughed at Death, when it came near to touching him. Only when trouble threatened the Billabong folk did it seem to him a thing to be seriously considered. Nothing else in the world really mattered to him.

“Well, you found that girl of mine, Wally?” David Linton said, looking up at them from his chair. “What had kept her?”

“Nothing of any importance—at least, nothing wrong, she said,” Wally answered. “She wouldn’t tell me any more, as at that moment she discovered that you had been worrying, and then she just galloped and sang loud ditties to let you know there were no bones broken!”

“I heard them,” the squatter said, laughing. “I won’t say it wasn’t pleasant hearing, either: I was beginning to get a bit uneasy. It’s not like Norah to stay out so late. Well, I suppose she had a reason.” He turned to his son. “Satisfied with the cattle, Jim?”

“Oh, everything is dog-poor, of course,” Jim answered. “Nobody has any grass, and nothing is looking well. There were a lot of stock in, but mighty few buyers. I got twenty-five nice enough young bullocks, if they had anything on their bones; they’ll do well enough on what grass we have until the rain comes. Bob bought sheep: he says he has a good picking still left along the Creek.”

“Plucky chap, Bob,” remarked Mr. Linton. “But he’ll come out all right.”

“Some of the old hands at the sale were prophesying rain coming,” Jim observed. “Old Joe Howard, for one.”

“The old hands begin to do that about February,” Mr. Linton said, with a laugh. “Old Joe told me three weeks ago that rain was near, but we haven’t had a drop. However, it will come in time, if they go on prophesying long enough.”

“I believe it’s coming,” said Wally. “There’s a queer, hot feeling in the air.”

“There is,” said Mr. Linton dryly. “I’ve noticed it several times this summer!”

“People always laugh at me when I try to be a prophet,” Wally said, his voice resigned. “However, when you awaken to hear the rain bounding off your parched roofs you can remember I foretold it!”

“I will—if I awaken soon enough,” said the squatter. He turned as a new-comer entered the room: a very fat old woman with grey hair and cheeks like rosy apples. “Yes, Brownie—what is it?”

“Miss Norah’s very anxious as you should begin tea, sir,” said Brownie. “She’s nearly dressed, but she knows Mr. Jim and Mr. Wally must be hungry.” She beamed on them both: nothing was more gratifying to Brownie’s motherly soul than that “the children” should devour enormous meals.

“Well, I am hungry, Brownie,” remarked Jim. “I could eat a giraffe!”

“Well may you be hungry, and tea near two hours late,” Brownie said. “And Mr. Wally, too.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m hungrier than he is, Brownie,” said Wally, “only I don’t talk about it.”

Brownie gave a fat chuckle.

“A nero, that’s what you are,” she said. “A brave nero. Well, shall I send in tea, sir?”

“I think you had better, Brownie,” said Mr. Linton, “or he may cease to be a nero.” He rose stiffly, knocking his stick over, and smiled as the two big fellows dived for it. Wally was a shade the quicker. He retrieved the stick and handed it to its owner.

“I’ll be jolly glad when you don’t have to use this old thing, sir,” he said. “It seems all wrong to have you limping about.”

“I’ll have to use it altogether soon, I expect, Wally,” the squatter said, laughing. “Old age, you know.”

“Old age be hanged!” said Wally swiftly. “You’re a better man after an awkward bullock than any one else on Billabong, isn’t he, Jim?”

“He is,” said Jim, in the deep, pleasant voice that was like Norah’s. “And I wouldn’t care to take him on without gloves, would you, Wal?”

“Rather not!” Wally said. “There was an old chap at the sale who was telling us yarns about you to-day, sir.”

Mr. Linton looked alarmed.

“What secrets of my black past have you been hunting up?” he demanded.

“Oh, very interesting stories,” Wally answered, grinning. “There was one about a Masonic ball, years ago—I ask you, Jim, to notice the look of guilt!”

“Did you ever go to a Masonic ball, Daddy?” Norah asked. “And what did you do there?”

She had come in, unnoticed, and now she went up beside him, rubbing her cheek against his arm—a slender figure in white, with a blue band in her brown curls. Very tall she was, like all the Lintons, and with a kind of steadfastness in her face that had not been there before the War called upon her to endure long months of sorrow and suspense. But her grey eyes were still the merry eyes of a child. Once, Wally thought, looking at them, he had believed they had forgotten how to laugh—in the grim days when they believed that Jim had gone for ever. He still remembered how they looked on that night of miracles when Jim came back.

The gong in the hall boomed suddenly.

“There,” said Mr. Linton, with evident relief. “Tea!—and though Jim gets sympathy because he could eat a giraffe, and Wally is a nero—Brownie says he is; in fact, she said he was a brave nero—no one gives me any sympathy for being hungry.” He limped off, decision in the sound of his stick. “Come and pour out tea, young woman, and give an account of yourself for being so late!”

They trooped after him. There were savoury odours from the dining-room, where Brownie was putting a huge pie in front of her master’s place. It was a heartsome room for hungry people: a long room, panelled in dark wood, above which hung a few good pictures. The table, with its exquisite linen and gleaming glass and china, stood near a window, where the curtains were drawn to shut out the chilly autumn night. Brownie ran her eye over it inquiringly.

“I can’t never be sure what Annabelle’s forgot to put on,” she murmured, half to herself. “As if a girl could be a good housemaid, with a name like that! Annabelle, indeed! Her grandmother ’ud have been plain Ann, and all the better for it.”

“Well, if Annabelle had forgotten everything else it wouldn’t mattered much, so long as you hadn’t omitted that pie, Brownie,” Jim remarked, looking approvingly at its glossy brown surface. “That’s a very noble pie. Got one for Mr. Wally, too?”

Brownie chuckled.

“Get on with your joking, Mr. Jim,” she said. “There’s two fine young roosters in that pie, to say nothing of other trimmings. It ain’t none of your old war pies. Only I’m dreadin’ it’ll be dried up to nothing.”

“Not it,” said Jim. “It has been reserved for a nobler fate, Brownie. Oh, by Jove, I forgot something!” He rose and left the room, going upstairs three steps at a time. When he came down again, as swiftly, Brownie was in the hall, her broad face turned inquiringly upwards.

Jim put a little package into her hand.

“That’s for you,” he said. “Pills. A chap at the sale told me they were perfectly gorgeous for rheumatism—cured his in two twos. Just you go and take them—two after each meal, he said.”

“Why, my dear!” Brownie was stammering. “But that sale wasn’t in Cunjee—it was at Holderson’s, you said.”

“Well?” said Jim. “Go and take your pills, Mrs. Brown.”

“But—do you mean to say you went on five miles into Cunjee to buy them?”

“I never said any such thing,” said Jim, laughing.

“But you did. You know you did, Master Jim!” Whenever Brownie was moved she went back to the boyish “Master.”

“Oh, Brownie, woman, go and take your pills—I want to go and take my pie!” protested the big fellow, laughing.

She put her hand up to his coat-sleeve in a little gesture half-shy, wholly loving.

“Well, it was like you to do it, an’ I can’t say more than that!” she said, looking at him with misty eyes. “Yes, go on, my dear—don’t let the pie get cold. An’ thank you, Master Jim.”

Murty O’Toole, head stockman, was in the kitchen. To him Brownie proudly showed her pills.

“An’ the beauty of it was, I never said a word about me rheumatics,” she said. “Not a word, Murty, I tell you. But I know me old knee was pretty bad this morning, an’ he saw me limpin’ at breakfast. Says he, then, ‘Can’t you make one of the girls give us breakfast when we have to start out early? A couple of eggs ’ud do us,’ he says. Me, that’s never let ’em go out early or come without a real good ’ot meal for ’em. ‘Don’t you know yet as ’ow I like me job?’ says I. An’ not a word passed between us about me old knee. But that’s what he done. Ten miles ride on to a long day’s work for an old woman’s box of pills!”

“Well, it’s that sort he is,” said Murty, stretching out his long legs towards the glowing stove. Murty was always a privileged person in the kitchen at Billabong: moreover, he loved warmth, and winter fires had not been started in the men’s hut. “From the time he was a shlip of a wee gossoon he’d think of annyone else barrin’ himself. Didn’t he come every night last winter when I had the lumbago, an rub me till he had every bit of skin rubbed off of me back? ‘I dunno,’ says he, ‘am I doing ye good or harrm, Murty, old chap.’ ’Tis good ye are doin’ me,—but I don’t believe I can shtand anny more of it,’ says I. An’ I got Dave Boone to put on some ointment he was afther gettin’ for Garryowen’s hock. But where’s the Boss’s son, on any station ye can name me, as ’ud do as much for an old stockman?—unless ’twas Mr. Wally, an’ he’d do it just as quick.”

“He would so,” said Brownie. “There’s mighty little to choose between them when it comes to kindness. How is it for a cup of tea, Murty? I’ve ’ad me tea these two hours, but it seems I got to ’ave another meal so’s I can take me pills after it.”

“ ’Tis mesilf can help you with the tea, Mrs. Brown, me dear,” said Murty nobly. “I’ll not be interferin’ with the pills.”

In the dining-room the pie was waning under a determined onslaught in force; and Norah had given the account of herself demanded by her family.

“I couldn’t leave the poor soul on the road, could I, Dad?”

“Oh, no, you couldn’t, of course,” David Linton said. “Only next time you befriend a stranded lady, couldn’t you stop somewhere and telephone to say you’ll be late home?”

“Indeed, if I’d had a scrap of sense I’d have got Miss Wright to do that for me,” Norah admitted. “I met her near Four-Cross-Roads, and stopped to talk to her about the little girl; of course she says it will be all right for Mary-Kate. None of the children about here have the slightest prejudice against immigrants’ children—they’re rather interested in helping them along, Miss Wright says. But she is horrified to think of that poor little Mrs. Reilly being here so long without having seen anyone. She means to go and see her herself on Sunday, so that she will feel happy about sending Mary-Kate to school on Monday: and she will tell other women about her.”

“I’ll ride over and see Reilly as soon as I can,” Wally said. “Coming, Jim?”

“Rather!” said Jim heartily. “Fancy seeing a man of the Munsters again! There were three of them in my first prison-camp in Germany; awful good chaps—they kept every one of us laughing. We must tell Murty there’s another Irishman in the district. What sort is the kiddie, Nor?”

“Oh, the queerest wee elf,” Norah answered. “Very small for her age, with a keen, dark little face like her mother’s, and big dark eyes—eyes that change so that you can’t quite tell what colour they are. Such a twinkle in them, too! I should think she has any amount of pluck—at all events she is ready to fight the school if it fails to treat her properly. I fancy Mary-Kate will make her mark in a peaceful Australian school!”

“Her class shouldn’t be dull, anyhow,” said Wally. “Another pie, Jim?”

“Thank you, I will not have another helping of pie,” said Jim sedately, looking at the remnants of the noble structure wherein the two ill-fated birds had slept their last sleep. “Norah, is that jelly I see near you? Wally wants some.”

“Meaning that you want some yourself, I suppose,” said Norah, laughing. “Jelly, Wally?”

“Thanks, I’ve embarked on scones,” said Wally. “Pass it to Jim—he really isn’t at all concerned about me. I say, Mr. Linton, what about that Masonic ball you were discussing?”

“I’m not aware that I ever mentioned one,” said the squatter manifestly uneasy. “If you boys begin listening to all the stupid talk round a sale-yard, you’ll believe anything!”

“I believe there’s a mystery!” said Norah. “Own up, Daddy. What did you do?”

“I’ve forgotten,” said Mr. Linton, looking at her with anxiety. “If I ever went to one it must have been at least forty years ago—in the days when we danced Varsovianas and Circassian Circles, and Polka-Mazurkas. You people who jazz and one-step don’t know the thrill it gave one to polka-mazurk! Dances aren’t what they used to be—and dance-tunes aren’t either. Nowadays you dance to music that sounds like a lot of donkeys braying accompanied by the banging of tin-trays!”

“That’s true enough,” Jim agreed. “It’s a bit different to the jolly old waltz-tunes; I can remember those. But all this burst of eloquence, true as it is, doesn’t relieve you from the necessity of telling us about the Masonic ball. It merely goes to show us that you really remember it very well!”

A twinkle came into his fathers eyes.

“It’s an awfull thing to be in the hands of the Philistines,” he said. “What did the old man at the sale tell you about it, Wally? And who was he?—do you know?” He glanced round the table. “By the way, you have all finished, I think—even you, Jim? Then ring for Annabelle, Norah, and we’ll have this matter out in the drawing-room.”

They trooped in after him, and Norah arranged a hassock for his lame foot: an attention to which her father submitted nightly, although he generally kicked it away with the sound foot as soon as he thought Norah would not notice. Even when lame, David Linton was not broken to hassocks.

“I don’t know exactly who the old chap was,” Wally said, lighting his pipe. “That is, I don’t know his name. He looked like a groom; a little wizened fellow, with a face like a very wrinkled apple. And when he heard Jim’s name, he just purred. Said he’d known you ages ago, and told us all sorts of interesting stories about you. Then old Bassett, from the other side of Borrodaile, chipped in, and they swopped yarns about you.”

“Old Ben Bassett!” said Mr. Linton. “Yes, he and I knew each other well enough. Good old Ben; I haven’t seen him for fifteen years, I should think. How does he look?”

“He’s grey, but he’s as straight as a dart, and looks as if he were good for many a long day’s work yet,” Jim said. “A great old man. He called the little old chap Andy, Dad, if that conveys anything to you.”

“Did he so?” said his father, much interested. “Then it would be little old Andy McLean, who was groom at the hotel in Borrodaile long before any of you were born. To think of his being alive still! Why, we called him ‘Old Andy’ then. But he was the sort of man who looks as if he had been born old.”

“Well, he told us to ask you if you remembered a Masonic ball. And when we wanted him to tell us more, he just chuckled and chuckled as if he were wound up and couldn’t stop. So we naturally came home a bit curious.”

“Well, I never thought that old story would rise up against me,” said Mr. Linton. “It’s hard luck that it should, seeing that I was only a bit of a youngster when it happened. I don’t think I was more than nineteen—and people of nineteen aren’t supposed to have much sense.”

“No. Go on, Dad,” said Norah, as he paused. “We’re all over nineteen, so of course our sense has come!”

“Has it?” queried her father, with interest. “I’m glad you told me. This Masonic ball took place in Borrodaile, forty miles from here. I’d been droving; three of us brought some cattle down from Queensland to a station near Borrodaile, and I said good-bye to my mates an rode into the township one evening with nothing in the world to do. I was a big lump of a boy, I had money in my pockets, I was nineteen, and I was idle. And that’s a very good start for getting into mischief.

“There was a fellow I knew in Borrodaile named Baker, and I went to see him. He was a bachelor, with an old housekeeper: she let me in, telling me Baker would be in soon, and she showed me into his room to wash my hands. Lying on his bed was some Masonic kit; blue apron and a big jewel affair. I didn’t know much about them, but the old housekeeper told me that they were Baker’s and he was going to wear them at a Masonic ball that evening. That was the first I knew of it—and I was mad on dancing. I asked the old lady could anyone go—mostly anyone could go to bush dances in those days, and I had some respectable clothes with me. But she knew about as much about it as I did, and she shook her head and said she thought only gents with the Masonic kit could go. Wherefore I sorrowed, and envied Baker.

“Time went on, and Baker didn’t turn up. As a matter of fact, Baker never did put in an appearance until next day, for his horse had gone dead lame twenty miles from home, and he couldn’t get another. But I sat and waited, and I could hear the music—two fiddles and a concertina—going in the hotel across the street, and at last I got desperate. It seemed an awful pity for those elegant Masonic affairs to be wasting on that bed. And the end of it was I told the old lady to tell Baker I’d borrowed them, and he could come after me and get them. And I put them on: first and last time I ever wore an apron! I covered them up with my overcoat and dodged across the street, and I can tell you it took some pluck to go in. However, in the hall I met a girl I knew, from one of the stations, and so I sailed in with her and danced. Then, of course, I saw that there were lots of other fellows without the Masonic regalia, but by this time she had chaffed me so about them that I wouldn’t take them off. She introduced me to other girls, and I had a splendid time.”

“But what about the other Masons, Dad?” Jim inquired, laughing. “Didn’t they interfere?”

“I tried very hard not to catch the eye of one of them,” said his father, laughing. “I was afraid they might have some mysterious glance or password I couldn’t respond to; and as long as they didn’t actually encounter me, there was always a hope that they might think I belonged to some other township. They were all pretty busy having a good time themselves. But the trouble began when one of my friends—she was a cheery soul—persuaded me to let her wear the jewel. That put the fat in the fire at once. We were dancing together when an angry young Mason—he was secretary or something—came up and told her she must take it off. That annoyed me, and I told her to keep it on. So we had an argument about it, and it ended in my giving my partner my apron as well as the jewel, to take care of, and the secretary and I retired to the back-yard to argue it out. I suppose that was where old Andy came in: most of the township lads were there, I heard afterwards. We must have been something of a counter-attraction to the dance.”

“I’ll bet you were!” said Jim, laughing. “Could he fight, Dad?”

“Indeed he could. We were pretty well matched, but I was in better training. I’d had five months on the road with cattle. The dance was nearly over before we began; and that was as well, for neither of us could have gone back to it. We damaged each other pretty considerably: as I remember it, it was a beautiful fight! I beat him at last, but there wasn’t much between us. Then we shook hands and made friends, and I told him how it had happened and he was very decent over it. We got washed up until we looked as respectable as possible—I’m not saying we were ornamental!—and I sent a messenger to get Baker’s things. To my horror he brought back word that everybody had gone home—my partner among them!

“I knew her name, and the secretary—his name was Wilding, by the way, and we’re friends yet—knew that she was a farmer’s daughter, living fifteen miles out in the hills. He offered to show me the way, and we got our horses and set sail just as it was getting light. I was half-asleep most of the way, and Wilding wasn’t much better. We got there at last, and found the girl’s brother outside, and he told us she was milking down in the shed. So she was, with two of her sisters. She was a bit relieved to see me; for she hadn’t known what to do with the things, an she hadn’t liked the responsibility of them. ‘Just you go on with the cows, and I’ll go up and get them,’ said she. ‘I’m late with them now, and Dad’ll be wild if they’re not done soon.’ So Wilding and I tied up our horses and sat down to milk: and she didn’t turn up until the last cow was in!”

Jim gave a crack of laughter.

“Pretty cute, Dad!”

“She was,” said his father. “Then she put a meek face round the doorway and said she’d had no end of trouble finding the things, but they were all ready in a parcel, and Mother said we were to come in to breakfast. Jolly glad we were to do that, for I’d had no supper at the ball, except a sandwich a girl had brought out to me—I wasn’t going to trust myself in the supper-room with all those dangerous Masons! And that’s all the story, except that I was uncommonly pleased when I put back Baker’s regalia, safe and sound: and I’ve never pretended to be a Mason since. Little did I think that old Andy would cast my wild youth at me forty years later!”

“I’d have been pained if you hadn’t won the fight,” said Norah. “But as it was, I don’t quite see why you should worry about it.”

“Oh, I never worried,” said her father, smiling. “It was part of the day’s work, and they were free-and-easy times, forty years ago. Now I am old and reverend, and I have to keep you young people in order: and how am I to do it if the boys bring home wild yarns about me?”

“Anyhow, you had us taught boxing,” Jim said.

“That showed my peaceful instincts,” said Mr. Linton. “The fellow who knows how to use his hands scientifically is the one who gets into the fewest fights, and comes out with the least amount of damage. And boxing teaches you to control your temper, which is no bad thing for anyone. An occasional fight is pretty good for a boy, so long as he fights fair, and he can only do that if he has been trained.”

He got up stiffly, leaning on his stick.

“Well, Brownie has to rub this old knee of mine, so I must be off,” he said. “Come and see me as you go to bed, Norah.”

Norah nodded.

“I won’t be long, either, Dad; I’m sleepy. Tommy and I made the most heavenly brew of marmalade to-day.”

They heard him going slowly upstairs.

“I wish you’d heard that old Andy and old Bassett talking about him, Nor,” Jim said. “You would have liked it.”

“Tell me what they said, Jimmy.”

“That would take a good while,” said her brother. “They said there was no man in the district who could beat him at boxing, and very few who could ride like him. And they said he was always going out of his way to do some one a good turn—any lame dog who wanted a lift over a stile had only to go to David Linton. And his word was as good as any other man’s bond.”

“But we know that,” said Norah, elevating a proud young nose.

“Yes—but you’d have liked to hear the way they talked about it.”

“Yes, I know I would. I’d have loved it, Jimmy.” She slipped her hand into her brother’s.

“Norah,” said Wally, “they said a man met him on a lonely bush track one evening, riding his hardest for a doctor—his wife was very ill. He hadn’t much of a horse, and your father had a good one; so he sent the poor chap back to his wife while he went after the doctor himself. It was a pretty awful ride, over very wild country,—there was an easier way, but it was longer, so your father took the short way, and he took it in the dark. You know he has always had an instinct for country; they said he used to be as good as a black fellow in getting about country he didn’t know. Anyhow, he did it in the dark—hills and gullies all over thick scrub, and two pretty bad rivers to cross. He got to the township he wanted in the small hours of the morning, and found the doctor. And the doctor was drunk!”

Norah drew her breath sharply.

“Wasn’t there any other? But of course there wouldn’t be—not in those days.”

“No—there wasn’t another within fifty miles. Your father found the doctor’s house first, and his wife told him how things were. So he told her to get her husband’s medicines and things ready—every doctor then had his bag with all sorts of kit, ready for the bush—and he set sail after the doctor, and found him in a back room in the hotel. He was fighting-drunk, but Mr. Linton was fighting-sober. He took him out to the back and held him down while another fellow pumped water over him. They say they nearly drowned him between them. Then your father tied him on to a horse some one else had brought—half the township was awake by this time, but they say Mr. Linton never spoke a word, except to give orders. ‘And I can tell you we jumped when he give us orders,’ old Andy said.”

“Go on, please, Wally,” said Norah. Wally’s pipe was out, and he was regarding it reproachfully.

“He had sent some one else for the doctor’s bag, and he tied it on his own saddle, and they set off. The others thought he’d go the easy way, this time, and when they saw him take the track that led to the bush some of them yelled, and a man tore after him and begged him to go by the road.

“ ‘There isn’t time,’ he said.

“ ‘You’ll never get through—not with that lump on the other horse,’ the man cried.

“ ‘Hang it, man! I’ve done it in the dark,’ said your father. ‘It will be easy in the light—lump and all. Anyhow, I’m going!’ And he set off at a gallop, with the wretched doctor bumping all over the saddle. But he had been very well tied.

“It must have been a pretty awful ride for the doctor. He told his wife afterwards that he never thought they’d come through alive. He begged Mr. Linton to stop, and threatened, and said everything he could think of, and your father never answered a word, only dragged him through the scrub, and across everything that came in his way. They had a fearful time crossing the rivers, but somehow or other Mr. Linton always managed to keep the doctor’s bag dry. They came in sight of the house they wanted in the early morning, and just then the doctor’s horse stopped—dead beat. They couldn’t get another yard out of him. Your father untied the doctor—he was sober enough by that time—and put him on his own horse. ‘Your job’s there,’ he said. ‘And if you don’t pull her through I’ll take you back the way I brought you!’ And he gave his horse a whack and sent him off.”

“And what happened?” Norah asked breathlessly.

“They were in time—but only just in time. Half an hour later, the doctor said, they’d have been too late. And if they had come by the road they’d have been two hours later.”

“And he pulled her through?”

“Oh, yes. He was a good doctor when he was sober. He came out into the yard afterwards, and found your father chopping wood. Mr. Linton was dead-beat himself, and his clothes were torn to ribbons, but there wasn’t any wood cut, so he was chopping some.”

“How exactly like Dad!” said Norah.

“Yes, wasn’t it?” said Jim, smiling. “Go on, Wal.”

“And the doctor thanked him, and told him he’d never touch another drop of whisky. He didn’t either, old Andy said: he was as sober as a judge always afterwards. It’s not a bad little story, is it, Nor? I knew you’d like it.”

Norah looked at him and failed to find any words.

“Jim wanted to tell you, but I said it wasn’t fair,” said Wally, laughing. “It’s quite enough for you two to own him, so I bagged telling the story.”

“As if you didn’t own him, too, old chap,” said Jim.

“Do I?” said Wally, his merry face a little wistful. “It’s rather jolly to think I do, at all events—especially when you hear people talking like those two old chaps at the sale to-day. I tried to look as much like Jim as possible, but the bottom fell out of that when old Andy said to him, ‘I’d know you for David Linton’s son any day, but you’—to me—‘ain’t no more like him than a crow!’—and I had to admit that my name was Meadows. Andy seemed quite annoyed about it, and devoted himself exclusively to Jim.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter a bit, because we’re all one family,” said Norah airily. “And it was just a lovely story, Wally; I’m ever so glad we’ve heard it. One of you will have to tell Brownie.”

“I bagged that privilege,” said Jim, with decision. “Wally can’t have all the limelight.”

“Well, don’t leave Murty out of it,” said Norah. “You’ll probably find him in the kitchen now; I’m going up to Dad. Good-night, boys. Oh, are you going out early to-morrow, Jim?”

“I am not,” said Jim. “Seven o’clock breakfast this morning and eight o’clock tea to-night means pretty nearly a day’s work. There’s nothing very urgent to do to-morrow, and I shall do it with leisurely elegance.”

“Is that how you’re going to brand those new bullocks?” demanded Wally.

“I shall brand the new bullocks, gently but firmly, after breakfast,” said Jim, blandly disregarding this question. “Then I shall take my little gun and shoot at rabbits until dinner-time; and after dinner I am going over to help Bob muster his sheep: in all of which I shall desire your assistance, young Wally.”

“And having mustered the sheep, you’ll turn up for afternoon tea at Creek Cottage, I presume?” said Norah.

“Why—with luck,” agreed Jim.