A BLACK HELP FOR BIDDY OBTAINED--BENDIGO, HER HUSBAND--PRODUCTS OF THE
ESTATE--SHOOTING EXCURSIONS--HECTOR AND THE LEECHES--THE BOYS AWAKENED
BY A LAUGHING JACKASS--A FLOOD IN THE RIVER.
Things went on quietly enough at the farm, until one day Biddy struck--
not for wages, but for help. She could not bear to see the young ladies
do the work they were compelled to do, and yet it was more than she
could do herself.
The captain inquired whether she would object to a black help.
"Sure not, yer honour, if she kapes a dacent tongue in her mouth,"
answered Biddy. So the captain rode out to obtain the assistance Biddy
asked for. A short distance away, a small tribe of friendly blacks were
encamped; among them was one called Bendigo. He had frequently visited
the station, and was ready to make himself generally useful by chopping
wood or occasionally assisting the shepherds. He had a wife named
Betty, who, if she was not pretty to European notions, was thought to be
so by Bendigo, and she was a young, good-natured, merry little woman.
The captain invited the couple to come and take up their abode on the
farm. They were to have a hut to themselves. Betty was to help Biddy,
and Bendigo was to do any work required of him. The offer was accepted,
and Betty was forthwith installed as Biddy's help. Her costume when she
made her appearance was not altogether suited to her new style of life,
as it consisted of a man's old shirt and a piece of grass matting as a
petticoat.
The young ladies immediately manufactured for her a robe of blue serge
trimmed with red braiding, while Biddy initiated her into the use of
soap and water, to which she had hitherto been a stranger. She
carefully brushed her hair and combed it out with a horse-comb, none of
those in ordinary use being strong enough for the purpose.
Betty was immensely proud of her new costume, and hurried away to
exhibit herself to her husband and the other black fellows on the
station. Had not Bendigo stopped her she would have gone off to the
camp; but he, not without reason, feared that she might have been
deprived of her new dress by some of her beloved relatives.
Every morning she appeared at daybreak, and if Biddy overslept herself
she was sure to awaken her by loudly knocking at the door of the kitchen
in which Biddy slept. They were very good friends, though neither could
understand a word the other said. But Betty quickly learned, after a
certain sort, Biddy's language, and, as may be supposed, a very curious
lingo was the result. Harry declared that any day Betty might be taken
for a black Irish girl.
"Sure we have no naguers in the ould country, Master Harry!" answered
Biddy.
Betty soon learned to perform any work she was shown how to do; but she
preferred tending the children, and if she saw them running down to the
river, or wandering too far from the house, she was after them like a
shot, always bringing them back in her arms, sitting down and lecturing
them after her own fashion--telling them of a fearful monster which had
its abode beneath the water, or of wild men who lay concealed in the
scrub ready to carry them off and eat them. Poor Betty had no notion of
right or wrong, and, although she did not steal or tell falsehoods, it
was from the belief that the white people, who knew everything, would to
a certainty find her out. As soon as she had obtained some knowledge of
English, Mary and Janet endeavoured to instil into her dark mind some
religious ideas. It was long, however, before they were satisfied that
she had comprehended the simplest truths.
The family were now anxiously waiting Paul's return. All the flour in
the store-room had been exhausted, but they were not so badly off as
they might have been in some regions. The captain had an acre or more
planted with the sweet potato--a species of yam, each root weighing from
three to four pounds, and sometimes even more. Biddy had learned to
cook them properly, when they appeared dry and floury. Though the
cousins at first declared that they were too sweet to eat, they
acknowledged, however, when dressed under the roast meat, that they were
very nice. Then they had bananas, a pleasant, nutritious fruit. The
captain, on first coming to the farm, had formed a plantation of these
trees, and as they had been well protected they had escaped destruction
from the hurricane. The trees were raised from suckers, which grew
around the bottom of the parent tree. Within eighteen months from the
time the plants had been set out the trees began to bear fruit. This
comes out from the centre of the plant, and hangs down in a large bunch,
five or six in a bunch.
One great advantage was that there were ripe bananas all the year round,
though they were most plentiful in the summer. The trees were upwards
of twenty feet in height, with broad green leaves four to six feet in
length. There was an avenue composed of them running from one side of
the garden to the other, which afforded at all times a delightful shade.
The stems contain a quantity of fibrous matter, which makes excellent
rope.
"We shall not starve while we have these to subsist on," observed the
captain to his brother. "The people in the south call us `Banana-men';
and not a bad name either, for with their aid we could manage to subsist
on beef and mutton, even had we no other vegetable productions to depend
upon."
Mary and Janet had nearly two hundred hens in their poultry yard, and by
attending carefully to them and not allowing them to stray, they were
able to obtain several dozen eggs daily.
Hector and the younger boys frequently went out fishing, but Harry and
Reggy preferred shooting. On one occasion Hector volunteered to
accompany them.
The boys were feeling somewhat fatigued from their walk, when they
reached a large water-hole, which they had not before visited.
"The water looks very refreshing; I intend to have a bath," said Hector,
beginning to undress.
Just then Harry caught sight of a flight of parrots, which had pitched
in some trees near at hand. Reginald and he crept near. Firing
together they brought down nearly a dozen. They were picking up the
birds when they heard Hector cry out. Running back to the water-hole,
they saw him almost in the middle.
"Help me! help me!" he shouted.
"Why, if you've got thus far, why can't you wade back again?" asked
Harry.
"There are some horrid creatures sticking to me, and I don't know what
they will do," cried Hector.
Harry and Reggy, caring nothing for the wetting, plunged in, and soon
helped Hector back on to dry ground. He had not cried out without
reason, for what was their dismay to see twenty or thirty leeches
sticking to his body, and several had fixed themselves to their own arms
even during the short time they had been in the water. They pulled them
off as fast as they could, but found it no easy matter to stop the blood
which flowed from some of the spots to which the creatures had fixed
themselves.
"I shall bleed to death! I shall bleed to death!" sighed poor Hector.
"I don't think things will be so bad as that," said Harry.
The leeches were very small at first, looking somewhat like thick bits
of hair, but they rapidly began to swell, and two which stuck on Reggy's
wrist, which he did not observe while assisting his brother, had grown
to the size of his little finger. Fortunately the leeches were wiped
off poor Hector's body before they had time to extract much of his
blood. Although he declared that he felt very faint he soon recovered,
and being attended to by Reggy and Harry, put on his clothes, vowing
that it should be the last time he would ever bathe in that detestable
country.
"All water-holes have not got leeches in them," observed Harry. "There
are none in those near Stratton, and I would advise you to break that
resolution."
Hector, however, declaring that he felt very ill, insisted on returning
home.
"Any news of Paul yet?" asked Harry, as they arrived at home.
"Not a word," said his father; "if he does not appear to-morrow I intend
to ride out and try to discover him."
Hector, meanwhile, was bitterly complaining to his mother of the
sufferings he had endured. "I wish that you'd let me go back to
England, or try and get me some gentlemanly post in Sydney or
Melbourne," he said.
"I will ask your father," was the answer.
The captain, to whom Mr Berrington communicated his son's request,
laughed heartily. "I am sorry for the poor boy. He would find that he
had dropped out of the frying-pan into the fire. If he cannot find
occupation in the bush, depend upon it he will not in the city. People
there do not want fine young gentlemen any more than they do here. Do
not let him go, as you will only be throwing your money away, but have
patience with him, and by degrees he will get accustomed to our ways,
and prove useful at last."
Mr Berrington told his son "that he would think about the matter," and
Hector used to talk to his cousins of the Government appointment he
expected soon to obtain.
The heat had been very great. Not a cloud was in the sky, and not a
breath of wind fanned the topmost boughs of the tallest trees. Captain
Berrington had determined on starting to discover what had become of
Paul. Rob and Edgar were awake before daylight. The whole family
intended to be up to see the captain off. The window was left open on
account of the heat. Presently, from the wood close at hand, there came
forth a wild shriek of merry laughter, which made Hector start up.
"Where in the world did that come from?" he exclaimed.
Rob pointed to the wood.
"What can it be?" asked Hector.
Rob did not answer, amused at his cousin's astonishment.
Again, another jovial peal of laughter, followed by a self-satisfied
chuckle, came from the wood.
"What is it? What is it?" asked the others.
"You would have heard it before, many a time, if you had been awake at
this hour," answered Rob. "That is the settler's alarum--the laughing
jackass."
"Laughing jackass!" exclaimed Hector. "I never heard that a jackass
laughed, and I don't see one there," for in his eagerness he had jumped
up, and gone to the window.
The dawn, it should have been said, had just broken.
"Wait until we have more light," said Rob; "perhaps you will then see
our friend. I can just make him out. He is not down on the ground,
where you are looking for him--he is up in yonder tree."
"Up in a tree?" exclaimed his cousins, in chorus.
"Yes; he generally lives up there, but he does not indulge in such
uproarious laughter until early in the morning. I suppose he laughs at
the folly of people lying in bed, and so tries to wake them up."
Hector and Edgar were more mystified than ever. At last they caught
sight of a large brown bird with a big beak, sitting on a bough and
nodding its head, and then laughing away with all its might. They could
now no longer have any doubt whence the sound proceeded.
Just then Harry, arriving from the hut, came into the room.
"Come along, Harry," cried Reggy, "you said there would be time for a
bathe before breakfast."
"I'm your man," said Harry. "Come, be quick, Hector, or we shall be
back before you have put the finishing touch to your toilet."
The two lads hurried down to the river. Except in the water-holes which
were joined by a trickling rivulet the whole bed was dry, but the ponds
were of sufficient depth to afford a pleasant bath.
The boys were on the point of throwing off their clothes to plunge in,
when Harry exclaimed, "Hark! what's that sound?"
"It is like distant thunder," answered Reggy.
"It can't be thunder, there's not a cloud in the sky," replied Harry.
"It seems to me to be coming right down the river. I don't like it; I
heard just such a sound some years ago, when a great flood came down and
rose nearly up to the house. We won't bathe, but run back and tell
father; he'll judge what it is and what's best to be done."
The boys hurried back; but before they had got up to the top of the bank
the roaring sound had greatly increased, and Harry was more convinced
than before that a heavy flood was approaching.