The loafers at the bar all came out to see the start. The family on the
top of the bullock-dray peered forth from under the tilt. The barkeeper
shouted, 'Good luck to you and your lady, Mr McKeith.' The drunken
reprobates, awakened from their slumber on the boards, called out, too,
'Goo-luksh!' There was an attempt at a cheer, but before McKeith had
got out his answering, 'Thank ye--Good day, mates,' a shower of
opprobrious epithets rained upon him from a little band of discontented
bush rowdies--the advance guard of that same Union delegate who had
come up with them in the train from Leuraville.
Three of these men lurched on to the bar veranda, and, so to speak,
took the stage. In front was a stumpily-built bullock driver with a
red, truculent face, a ragged carrotty beard and inflamed narrow-ridded
eyes. A little to the rear stood a lanky, muscular bushman in very
dirty moleskins, with a smooth loose-lipped face, no eyelashes, and a
scowling forehead, who was evidently the worse for drink; next to him,
a shorter man of the drover type, older, eagle-beaked and with
sinister, foxy eyes. This one hailed McKeith.
'Yah! Look at him and his spanking team! What price honest labour, you
blamed scab of a squatter? Just you wait a bit. It'll be our turn soon
to burn all you blanked capitalists off the Leura.'
The lanky bushman took up the jeering note.
'Pretty flash turn-out, ain't it! My word, you think yourself a bloated
fine gentleman now you've married into the British hairystocracy, don't
you, Mister Colin McKeith? You can take it from us, boys, he's the
meanest cuss that ever downed a harmless nigger.... Ask him what the
twenty-five notches on his gun stand for?'
'And I tell YOU what it is, Steve Baines. There'll be another notch on
my gun, and it won't be for a nigger, if you give me any more of your
insolence,' said McKeith coolly. 'Get out of the way, men. Let the
horses go, Cudgee. Ready, Biddy?'
But Cudgee, out of malice or stupidity, did not let the roans go or
else someone else put a restraining hand on the reins. The man with the
ragged beard roared out.
'Ho, you think you're going to ride over us!--you and your fine
ladyship! Wot do we care about the British hairystocracy. What we're
asking for is the rights of labour, and we mean to have 'em. Do you
want to know what he's done to us boys? Fired us out straight away cos
we was 'avin' a bit of a spell and a drink to keep the life in us after
we'd close up killed ourselves lifting that there ladyship's blanked
hundred-ton weight of pianner on to the dray....'
Moongarr Bill's chivalrous instinct flamed to a counter attack. He had
just mounted, but swung down from his saddle and made a rush at the
speaker. McKeith's stern voice stopped him.
'Don't be a fool, Bill. Let the brutes alone and push on with the pack.
This is not the time for a row. As for you, Jim Steadbolt--you know me,
and you know that if this was any other sort of occasion, you'd pay on
the nail for your infernal cheek.... Leave go of those reins. D'ye
hear'; for the man of the ragged beard was jerking the near leader's
bit and putting the mettlesome animal on its haunches.
'Damn you! Let go.'
He leaned forward to strike at Steadbolt with his riding whip, but the
lash had caught round the pole-bar of the buggy, and he could not
extricate it. Bridget tried to help him. He turned to her for an
instant, a soft gleam of tenderness shining through the steely anger on
his face.
'No. Keep still, my dear. Don't be frightened.'
'I frightened!' She gave a little laugh. Her form stiffened. The small
pale face poked forward between the folds of her motor veil, and all
the O'Hara spirit flashed as she spoke to the group of malcontents.
'How dare you! Stand back. I thought Australian men were men, and that
they didn't insult women.'
There was an uproar in the veranda, and more cries of 'Shame,
Steadbolt, you! ... You just git, Gumsucker Steve. We ain't got no use
for you, Micky Phayle.... Can't you see a lady as is a lady?' sounded
from the bar and parlour. It was the landlady who asked the last
question. The two reprobates who had been asleep, lunged off the
veranda, and made a feeble assault on Steadbolt, who still clung to the
reins. The man, lashed to fury by the scorn ringing in Lady Bridget's
voice, made a last envenomed attack.
'It ain't us GENUINE Australians that insults you.... Takes a mongrel
Scotchy for that.... Say, Ladyship, just you ask your husband what a
sort of an insult he's got ready for YOU up at his Bachelor's Quarters
at Moongarr.'
The words had not left his mouth when McKeith's driving whip whizzed in
the air and raised blood on the speaker's cheek. Steadbolt dropped his
hold of the roan leader's bridle and fell back screaming imprecations.
At a touch, the buggy-horses bounded forward.
'Sit tight, Biddy,' said her husband. 'Up you get, Cudgee,' he shouted.
The black boy leaped to the back-seat, and in a moment the buggy
swerved by the bullock-dray that was drawn up a little further down the
road, and the excited horses galloped past the nineteen public houses
and the zinc-roofed shanties, past the new quarter of tents and
whirring machinery, past the deserted shafts and desolate mullock
heaps, then way out along the sandy wheel-track into the unpopulated
Bush.
For the first mile scarcely a word was exchanged between husband and
wife. The horses were fresh and McKeith had enough to do to keep them
from bolting. Moreover, even in emotional phases, he was always silent
while chewing the cud of his reflections. Bridget was thinking, too.
She had an uneasy sense of startlement, without exactly knowing why she
felt startled in that inward way. It was as though some great obscene
bird of flight had brushed her with its wings, and brought vaguely to
her consciousness unpleasant possibilities. But presently she became
interested in watching Colin's handling of the team. She had often sat
behind such a team, but never beside such a splendid whip. Impulsively
she made some such remark, and he looked down at her, the hard face
breaking into a smile.
'That's good.... Wait a bit, my dear, until they've steadied down
again.... Y'see they take a lot of driving, and I don't want to lay an
accident on top of that unholy shindy....' He spoke in jerks. The roans
were inclined to 'show nasty' as Moongarr Bill came abreast of them,
and Wombo's pack jingled behind. McKeith gave Moongarr Bill directions
about the camp in Bush lingo, which again turned Bridget's thoughts.
The black boy and the stockman spurred on as the roans slackened pace.
McKeith was able to relax the strain.
'My word! we scooted pretty quick out of that piece of scenery,' he
said. 'I felt downright mad at your being let in for such a disgraceful
bit of business. I hadn't time to tell you that I'd sacked those men
half an hour before. Found them in the lowest of the grog shanties,
their horses not looked after, dray only half loaded, and the three of
them--Gumsucker Steve was to have come and taken off our leaders when
we got into broken country--thick with the Union delegates and sticking
for higher wages. I paid them off and filled their places on the spot
with two chaps off a wool-drive.... So I left the brutes vowing
vengeance, and I suppose they thought they'd lose no time in giving me
a taste of it.... Well, they're no loss.' He had been explaining things
in jerks while he brought the team to an harmonious jog-trot along a
piece of uneven road. 'That fellow Steadbolt is a wrong 'un--not good
even at his own job of wood and water joey--which means, my dear, the
odd cart-driving on a place--and not to be trusted within ten miles of
a public house.'
Lady Bridget asked suddenly:
'I want to know, Colin--what did that man mean by saying you had an
insult ready for me at your Bachelor's Quarters? What insult?'
It seemed as though blue fire leaped from McKeith's eyes.
'Insult! Good God! Biddy you can't hold me responsible for the foul
insinuations of a beast like that. Insult YOU! my wife!'
The passionate tenderness thrilling his voice, the honest wrath and
bewilderment in his face must have silenced any doubt, had doubt
existed in Lady Bridget's mind.
'I don't know, Colin. I don't even know what Bachelors' Quarters mean.
Have you an army of Bachelors at Moongarr, and what do they do when
they're at home?'
He laughed. 'It's a shanty I put up for the new-chums when I've got
any--and for the gentlemen-sun-downers that come along, and visitors
that I don't want to be bothered with at the House. There's a woman up
there....' He stopped suddenly and his face grew grim again. 'That's
it, I suppose--I'm sorry I didn't sling the whip harder and cut the
fellow's cheek open. I would if I'd thought....!'
He stopped again.
'What woman? Have I a rival? This is becoming dramatic!' Lady Bridget's
voice was amusedly ironic, but she carried her head erect. 'Tell me
about the woman at the Bachelors' Quarters, Colin.'
'There's nothing to tell, except that's she's the widow of a man who
went up with me on my last Big Bight expedition, and was killed--partly
through his own, and partly through my, fault. That's why I've made a
point of looking after her, and I built my Bachelor's Quarters chiefly
to give her a job. I thought she was too young and too good looking to
be drawing grog for diggers at Fig Tree Mount--which was what she set
out doing.'
'I see.... So she's young--and handsome.'
'Oh, in a coarse sort of way.... No, I wouldn't say that; she's rather
refined for her upbringing. Anyway, Steadbolt as well as a lot of other
men fell in love with her--Steadbolt was pretty well off his head over
it. She wouldn't have him at any price--naturally--and I had to give
the fellow work outside the head-station to keep him away from her.
That was before I went south. Very likely he's been trying it on again,
and knew I should have to get rid of him as soon as I came back.'
'Why doesn't the woman marry again?'
McKeith shrugged. 'Too jolly comfortable perhaps--or perhaps the right
man hasn't turned up. Florrie Hensor is several cuts above a
malingering lout like Steadbolt. Well there, poor devil! Maybe, it's
not unnatural that I should feel a sneaking sympathy for an
unsuccessful lover. That abominable lie was a bit too strong
though--and before you! The man must have been downright mad from drink
and fury and bitterness. It--it's all funny--isn't it? One of the queer
sides of the Bush. Good old Bush! I am glad to be back in it again,
Biddy.'
He lifted his head and seemed to draw in the strong odour of the gum
trees and the pure vitality of the weltering sun. His anger appeared to
have left only compunction behind it. And again he begged her to
forgive him for having subjected her to an experience so disagreeable.
They were on a stretch of clear road now, and the roans trotted
pleasantly along. Lady Bridget took up his words.
'Yes, it's all funny--that kind of thing--in this setting.... I never
supposed that I should be howled at by a revolutionary mob in the
Australian Bush.... A BAS LES ARISTOCRATS. It's quite exciting. I think
I should have enjoyed the Reign of Terror.'
'Eh! You're only frightened of four-footed beasts. If you'd lived then,
you'd have gone up to the block with that smile on your lips, and the
proud turn of your little head--just as I used to dream of you...'
'Of ME!'
'You don't know--I'll tell you some day. I remember talking to Joan
Gildea once.... It's queer.... But never mind now. D'ye like this,
Biddy?'
'I love it. I wish we could drive on through the forest all day and all
night--a dream drive. I think I might be able to place myself at the
end of it.'
'To place yourself!'
'I've never been able to find my true pivot inside. All my life I've
been howling in my soul and haven't known what I was howling for. I
thought to-day that you might teach me.'
'Is it only to-day that you have thought that?' he said wistfully.
'Well, anyway, I'm glad of it.'
'Colin,' she said abruptly, 'wasn't it funking a little bit, don't you
think--running away?'
'No--not with YOU beside me. You'll have other opportunities for seeing
whether I've got much of the funker in me. No doubt those brutes will
give trouble some time.'
'What can they do?'
'Fire my run--spoil my cattle sales--get hold of my stockmen....But I'm
not so badly off as my "sheep" neighbours at Breeza Downs. They've got
to have their shearing done.... Though I've had a lot of bother
to-day,' his face became gloomy, 'and I foresee more ahead.'
She asked what other sort of trouble.
'Why! there's been no rain at Moongarr since I left it five months ago.
And Pleuro means innoculation and short sales.... Ah well! ...'
He flicked the wheelers gently. 'Shake it up, Alexander! Look alive,
Roxalana.... I named 'em when I was reading ROLLIN'S ANCIENT HISTORY,
my dear ... my dear!' He looked down at the little woman by his side
with deep tenderness in his blue eyes and a smile that banished the
shade from his face. 'Oh, my dear, there ain't going to be any bush
worries for us this blessed afternoon and evening. It's the poetry and
romance'--he pronounced it romance--'of the bush that's got hold of me
now. I'm just longing for us to strike the camping place--and
then--just you and me together--just man and woman--alone with Nature!'
He put his hand on hers and she pressed it in return. The Woman in her
thrilled to the Man in him.
Cudgee, on the hind seat with his back to them, broke the spell.
'My word, Massa! You look out, Mithsis--big feller goanner sit down
along a tree.' And for the first time in her existence, Lady Bridget
beheld a monster iguana dragging its huge lizard tail and turning its
stately, brown crocodile head round at her from the safe vantage place
of a thick gum branch.
After that, the way led off the main road, on by a less used track
through wilder country. Here Wombo, the black boy, was
waiting--Moongarr Bill having gone on with the pack horse to the
camping place--and helped to unharness the two leaders which he drove
before him ahead. The trees thickened, the buggy wheels caught on
stumps. Cudgee had to get down at intervals and, with his axe, lop and
clear fallen timber. Every mile the progress grew slower and the forest
more lonely. No sign now of a selector's clearing, or of any human
occupation.... But there was a pack of emus hustling and shaking their
big bunches of feathers like startled ballet girls.
'I feel as if part of the Zoo had been let loose,' said Lady Bridget
when again there bounded along in the near distance a pair of kangaroos
with a little Joey kangaroo taking a lesson in locomotion behind its
parents.
They were still in the gum forest, but now and then came a belt of
gidia scrub--mournful trees with stiff black trunks and grey green
foliage and a pale sort of wattle flower smelling like dead cattle when
rain is about, as McKeith explained. But there was no rain about now,
and, in truth, he would have welcomed the unpleasant odour. Perhaps it
was that which made the ground so stark and bare beneath these trees
where no grass will grow. The sun was lowering when they left the
gidia. Out in the gum forest again, the birds were chattering before
retiring to rest. All life is still in the bush at mid-day, but now
there were curious scutterings among the grass tussocks, and the whirr
of its insect population sounded all round. The country got
prettier--swelling pastures and stony pinches and a distant outline of
hills. They could see the green line of a water course.
'Plenty water sit down along a creek?' McKeith asked the black boy. But
Cudgee shook his woolly head.
'Ba'al* mine think it, Massa. No rain plenty long time.'
[*ba'al--the Aboriginal negative.]
McKeith sighed. The dark shadow of coming drought is a fearsome spectre
on the Never-Never Land.