BEYOND THE PLAINS
The little feet have left the house,
The little voice is still;
Without, the wan, wind-weary boughs;
Within, the will
To go and hear the wee feet tread
Within the garden of the dead.
—_R. Crawford._
THERE were no traces of storm when the girls awoke next morning. Mrs.
Archdale came in with tea as soon as she heard their voices. Her face
was quite smiling and happy.
“Very likely that dear old ‘Brownie’ of yours would say I shouldn’t give
you early tea,” she observed. “And I’m sure she’d be right. But I do
love it myself, and I’ve only got you for one morning, so I had to bring
it! Jack says I’ll ruin my system with tea, and all I can say is, it’s a
beautiful ending for a system!”
No one quarrelled with the tea or with the wafers of buttered toast that
accompanied it. Mrs. Archdale talked briskly while the girls ate.
“It’s just a perfect morning,” she said. “Blue sky and a little breeze,
and everything so clean and beautiful! You will have a lovely ride into
the ranges. I’ve often threatened to make Jack take me up Ben Athol, but
he regards me as quite insane when I mention it. But I should love to
go.”
“Come with us,” Norah cried.
She shook her head.
“Oh, I couldn’t leave my old man,” she said. “We never go very far away
from each other now. Some day I will persuade him to go, and perhaps
we’ll find the remains of your camp. But the blacks won’t have left much
of it.”
“Are there many blacks?” Jean asked, wide-eyed.
“No, very few. Two or three families, I believe. They used to be in one
of the aboriginal settlements, and sometimes they go back there in the
cold weather; but they won’t stay there when the spring comes, and they
say two or three camp in the hills all the year round. Sometimes they
come down to Atholton and hang about the township for a week or two
begging for food and old clothes; but they are a perfect nuisance, and
they’d steal your very clothes-lines! So everybody hunts them, and after
a while they clear out.”
“Do they come out here?”
“It’s a bit far from the township for them to come much,” Mrs. Archdale
answered. “One young darkey, who calls himself Braggan Dudley, visits us
occasionally, and tries to sell us very badly-made boomerangs; and his
old mother makes rush baskets rather well. I buy the baskets, and scorn
the boomerangs. But last time Mr. Braggan came he helped himself to one
of Jack’s hats. Unfortunately for him, Jack happened along at the
moment, and made things lively for him with his stock-whip; so I don’t
fancy we shall see much of the gentleman in future. Not that you can
tell—they have cheek enough for anything.”
“I hope we’ll run across some of them,” Jean said. “I haven’t seen any
Australian blacks.”
“Don’t get excited over the prospect,” Mrs. Archdale told her. “They may
have been worth seeing when they dressed in paint—not that they often
wore so much as that!—and roamed the forest before the white people
came; but in their present state of half civilization they are as
miserable a set as you could imagine. I haven’t met any that are not
whining, thieving, pitiful creatures—filthy beyond imagination, too,
most of them. There used to be a woman in the ranges of a rather better
type—she had been employed as a housemaid on one of the stations, and
had learned some decent ways, though, of course, she ran off and married
a blackfellow. But she must have gone back to one of the settlements, I
fancy; at any rate I haven’t heard anything of her for two years or
more. I’d like to know what became of Black Lucy; she wasn’t at all a
bad sort.”
Mr. Linton, arriving with the boys at an early hour, had more to say on
the subject of the blacks.
“Green—the storekeeper—tells me it won’t be safe to leave our camp
unprotected,” he said. “Those wandering natives are a perfect
nuisance—there’s nothing they won’t steal. That ends Master Billy’s
chance of getting to the top of the peak. He’ll have to stay and mind
camp, poor chap. Still, he’ll think himself terribly important, and if
any of his dusky brethren should come along he’ll quite enjoy hunting
them off; so he’s not altogether to be pitied.
“Was the hotel bad?” Norah inquired.
“Don’t allude to the hotel!” Wally said. “We’ve had a busy night, and
we’re all soured—and sore!”
“Oh, you poor souls!” Norah said. “Did they feed you decently?” At which
Jim and Wally gave vent to a simultaneous groan, charged with bitter
recollection.
“It was pretty dreadful,” said Mr. Linton, laughing. “I think we’re
fairly certain to want an early lunch!”
They said good-bye to Mrs. Archdale reluctantly, with many thanks and
promises to see her on the return journey. She held Norah’s hand a
little, looking at her wistfully. The others had ridden on down the
hill.
“Would you mind if I gave you a kiss?” she asked, hesitating over each
word. “I haven’t kissed any one but Jack since—since . . .” Her voice
trailed off into silence.
Norah bent down from the saddle quickly, and the poor woman flushed at
the touch of the fresh young lips. She stood looking down the track long
after the riders had vanished into the timber.
Atholton was not an exciting city. It consisted of a few scattered
houses, most of them bark-roofed, since the cartage of roofing iron to
this remote district was an expensive matter. No railway was within
sixty miles, and communication with the outer world was by means of a
coach, which ran twice a week. The _Peak Hotel_ was the high-sounding
appellation of the inn, where Mr. Linton and the boys had suffered many
things. The Atholton inhabitants referred to it briefly as The Pub.
There was a store, combining various matters; within its small compass
could be found groceries, drapery, bread, meat, saddlery, and the post
office; while at a pinch the storekeeper would undertake a commission
for a plough, a tombstone or a piano. The only other business
establishment was a blacksmith’s shop, where just now the smith was busy
in shrinking a tyre for the wheel of a bullock dray. The bullocks, a
fine team of ten polled Angus, were drooping their black heads wearily
outside, the heavy yokes falling forward on their necks. Their driver
propped his long form against the doorpost, and exchanged district news
with the smith.
At the store Black Billy might be seen adjusting to the pack-saddle a
bundle done up in sacking, and containing provisions. The storekeeper
came out as the party rode up; after the manner of Bush storekeepers,
all agog to talk.
“’Mornin’, Miss Linton,” he said, addressing Jean and Norah impartially.
“Lovely day you’ve got for your ride, now—haven’t you? All the same, I
wouldn’t mind bettin’ you’ll be pretty tired before you get up to the
peak of old Ben Athol.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Norah said. “We don’t mind getting a bit tired.”
“In a good cause?” finished the storekeeper, chuckling at his own
lightsome play of words. “Well, some have one idea of a lark, and some
have another; I can’t see much meself in climbing up that stony old
hill, but it’s all a matter of taste. And how did you get on at Mrs.
Archdale’s?”
“She was very kind to us,” Norah answered, warmly.
“Not a kinder woman in the districk,” said the storekeeper, producing a
fragment of black and ancient tobacco, and proceeding to cut up some.
“Pity she’s gone a bit queer. I was tellin’ your Pa last night how rummy
she’s got since their youngster died, an’ I believe I fair worried him
about you. But, of course, Mrs. Archdale’s all right—she’s only a bit
queer on that point.”
“I don’t call her queer,” Jean burst out, indignantly. “She can’t help
thinking about her little girl, of course.”
“But she’s just awfully nice!” Norah seconded. “And she was as good to
us as ever she could be.”
“There, now, I told your Pa she would be,” said the storekeeper, quite
unmoved. “Keeps that little home of hers like a new pin, too, don’t she?
Of course, Mrs. Archdale’s a cut above the ordinary—had a bit of
education, and all that. And, as you say, no one could blame her for
frettin’ about that poor little kid. Such a jolly little youngster she
was—always had a laugh for you. I can tell you the whole districk was
cut up over that youngster’s loss—an’ it wasn’t for want of huntin’
that the poor little body was never found. Of course, that’s what’s on
her mother’s nerves.”
“One can’t wonder at that,” said Mr. Linton.
“No, of course you can’t. Bad enough for a child to die; but not to be
able to give it decent burial makes it mighty rough—especially on a
woman. Not the first, by a long way, that has never been found in these
ranges, they’re that thick an’ full of gullies; but the wonder was we
didn’t get little Babs Archdale. All the districk was out. There wasn’t
a yard of scrub unbeaten for ten mile, I don’t think.”
“Poor little baby!” said Norah, very low.
“Ay. An’ the mother—my word, I don’t reckon any of us as were huntin’
’ll ever forget Mrs. Archdale’s face. She’s not the kind as shows her
feelin’s very ready; an’ that made it all the worse. Poor soul! Poor
soul! An’ after we’d had to give up, and the black trackers had gone
back, an’ every one knew it was hopeless, she an’ Jack kept on looking,
night an’ day I dunno at last what old Jack was most afraid of—not
findin’ her or findin’ her. Twas a relief to every one when we heard the
mother had gone down with fever. She was ravin’ for weeks.”
The storekeeper dropped his voice, looking round.
“An’ there’s a yarn,” he said. “I dunno if it’s true. Some people say it
is. Half her time Mrs. Archdale’s off in the scrub alone; an’ the yarn
is that she’s got a little cross stuck up in the ground in some gully,
an’ ‘Babs’ carved on it; an’ she keeps flowers there, like as if it was
really her little kiddie’s grave. An’ they say she goes down there an’
just sits still an’ looks at it. I dunno. Old Jack can’t know anything
about it, or he’d never leave her; but it ain’t the kind of thing you
like to think of a woman doin’—not a woman you like. An’ all this
districk thinks the world of Mrs. Archdale.”
Norah rode beside her father, and they were silent long after they had
bidden the storekeeper good-bye and left the roofs of Atholton low among
the timber as they mounted into the hills. She looked up at him at last.
“Oh, Dad,” she said; “if only any one could help her!”
“Ay,” said David Linton. “But that’s beyond human power, my little
girl.”
“I think she liked having us, Dad,” Norah said, half shyly. “That’s
nothing, of course, unless it kept her from thinking. Can we go back
there for another night on our way home?”
“If you like, dear,” he said. “But you’d rather camp, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t think so—not if she’d like us. She asked me if she could kiss
me, Dad.”
“Did she?” Mr. Linton said. “Poor lonely soul! It would really be better
if Archdale took her out of the district altogether—if she’d go. But
that would be the difficulty, I expect. I could give him a good billet
on Billabong if he’d take it. I’ll be looking for a storekeeper next
month.”
“Oh, I wish he would,” Norah exclaimed. “But I don’t think Mrs. Archdale
would ever leave here She feels she’s a bit nearer that poor dead baby,
perhaps.”
Above them they could catch glimpses of the track as it rose spirally
into the hills. Atholton nestled back into the very foot of the ranges.
Scarcely half a mile from its last house the flat country ended, and the
hills, tier on tier, rose ahead. Indeed, only for a little while was
there any real track. A few isolated mountain farms were perched on tiny
flats among the ridges, but as soon as the last of these was passed the
wheel track, rough as it was, ended abruptly, and there was only a rough
Bush path. Sheep had made it originally, and it had been widened by
drovers bringing down stock; but at best it was narrow and uneven, and
often the scrub grew so closely on either side, that it was only
possible for two to ride abreast.
It was too exquisite a day to be sad. Later the sun would be hot, but
now the jewels of last night’s rain still hung, trembling, on leaf and
bough, and caught the sunlight in liquid flashes. As they rode brushing
the dewy branches, they seemed to shake loose the hundred scents of the
Bush, and the sharp fragrance was like a refreshing draught. There were
not many wild flowers left, but there was no sameness in the scrub, that
showed varying shades of colour—tender green of young branches;
grey-green and blue-grey of the gum trees, shading to bronze in the
distance; on the topmost boughs of young saplings translucent leaves
that showed against the sunlight, yellow and red, and glowing crimson.
Overhead a sky of perfect blue, deep and pure, wherein sailed piled
masses of white cloud, flushed with pink where the rays fell. And all
about them birds that sang and chirped and whistled, flitting busily in
the green recesses of the scrub; such tame birds that it was evident
that few humans came this way to break into the peace and safety of
their hills.
“I guess we’ve had our last canter for a day or two,” Jim said. “Nothing
but climbing now. How’s the pack standing it Billy?”
“Plenty!” said the sable retainer, vaguely. “Baal that pfeller
slip—Boss packed him on.” His grin suddenly was a streak of light in
the darkness of his countenance.
But for the deep whisperings of the Bush it was a land of silence. They
had mounted above the last of the hill farms; no longer the faint
bleating of sheep came to their ears, or a cattle call sounding through
the timber. Here and there they caught glimpses of a steer, poking
through the scrub in search of the sparse native grass; but presently
there were no more fences, and they had climbed into the country that
was No Man’s Land.
No one would have had it. Even the easily pleased rabbit would have
found scant pickings on the stony soil. The scrub became scanty and
gnarled—the winds that blew across the face of the ranges in winter
twisted the saplings into queer, bent shapes, and whirled the very earth
from their roots. The horses, unused to such unkind ground, slipped and
stumbled on the sandstone outcropping here and there. Sometimes there
were gullies where the growth was dense—often the site of some old
landslip, or a deep cleft between two hills; and sometimes the sound of
falling water carried their eyes to where a spring, concealed in some
rocky hollow, sent a miniature fall drip-dripping down a steep
slope—its margin daintily green, with little plants striving for a hold
among the stones.
They camped for lunch early, seizing a patch of deep shade, where a
great blue gum grew out of a gully—the only big tree visible among the
sparse scrub. A huge boulder had sheltered it as a sapling, protecting
it until it had won strength sufficient to outgrow the kindly refuge,
and fling its great head towards the sky. The boulder lay at its feet
now, and the riders camped in its shadow. Near at hand a spring trickled
softly into a rainwashed hole, which brimmed over, sending a silver
thread of water down among the stones below. There was little or no
grass for the horses; but for this halt they had carried a small ration
of hard feed for each horse, and the sweating steeds welcomed it
eagerly. The night camp was to be made on a flat further up, where, the
storekeeper had told Mr. Linton, they would find grass.
Through the afternoon they climbed steadily. Soon it was easier to walk
than to ride, since riding was no quicker—and to lean forward grasping
a handful of your horse’s mane to ease the strain on his back, and
prevent yourself slipping over his tail, is not an especially
fascinating pastime, when pursued for any lengthy period. So they led
the horses, stumbling over the rocky pathway—though stumbling was a
somewhat exciting matter, as, if you fell, your steed would probably
walk upon you, since you would be apt to roll back under his fore feet.
It was a tiring day, even though the fresh mountain air helped them to
forget the sun, beating down hotly upon their shoulders. They enjoyed it
all—the English race, all the world over, has a way of taking its
pleasure strenuously. No one thought of wanting the way made easier.
Then, just as Mr. Linton was casting somewhat uneasy glances at the
weary horses, and wondering how much more acrobatic ability would be
demanded of them, they came to a belt of deeper scrub, where moisture
was suddenly perceptible in the soil that for hours had been arid and
dry. For a few moments they climbed through it, in single file, and then
a turn in the narrow track led them out upon a little plateau lying in a
nook among the hills. Not more than fifty yards square, it showed green
against the rugged slopes beyond. Water, unseen, trickled musically, and
a few trees were dotted about.
“Whew-w!” whistled Jim. “What a ripping place to camp!”
“Couldn’t be better,” his father said, with relief.
“I’m going to stay here for a week!” Wally declared, casting his hat
upon the ground.
“Then you’ll be living on gum leaves most of the time!” retorted Jim.
“Perhaps you might get a monkey-bear if you were lucky.”
“I could stand devilled bear very well indeed, just now,” responded his
friend. “Never met such hungry air in my life—in the words of the poet,
there’s nothing in the world I couldn’t chew!”
“Well, that may be the poet’s opinion, but you’re not going to chew
anything here until camp is fixed,” said Mr. Linton, laughing. “Jean has
us all beaten—her saddle is the first off.”
“Jean will get beastly unpopular if she’s not careful,” said Wally,
favouring the energetic Jean with as much of a scowl as his cheerful
countenance would permit. “These horribly-good people nearly always come
to a bad end, and nobody loves them!” A tirade that left Jean quite
unmoved, as she inquired of Mr. Linton if Nan were to be hobbled?
Besides the tent, there was a “wurley” to be put up to-night. The boys
were inclined to scorn this at first, but found later on that they were
glad of its shelter, for the keen mountain air was very different to the
milder temperature of the plains, and their stock of blankets was not
large. They built it of interlaced boughs, thick with leaves, and when
finished it looked most inviting. By that time Jean and Norah had tea
ready, and the camp fire was glowing redly in a rocky corner.
They sat about it afterwards, singing every chorus they could remember,
to a spirited accompaniment by Wally on the penny whistle. The whistle
was pitched in a higher key than Nature had rendered possible for most
of the singers—a circumstance which did not at all impair the
cheerfulness of the quartet, though Mr. Linton threatened to flee into
the fastnesses of the bush if the “obbligato” were not discontinued.
Black Billy, washing cups at the spring, and gathering kindling wood for
the morning fire, grinned all the time in sympathy with the freshness
and merriment of the young voices. They rang out cheerily, their echoes
dying away on the lonely slopes. Never had such sounds disturbed the
brooding silence of old Ben Athol.
To David Linton, lying awake in his “wurley” in the moonlight, gazing
dreamily out at a star that trembled in the west, it seemed that the
last chorus still lingered on the night air:—
“Wrap me up in my stock-whip and blanket,
And say a poor buffer lies low—lies low,
Where the dingoes and crows can’t molest me,
On the plains where the coolibars grow.”