McKeith's absence was longer than he had expected. Lady Bridget heard
from Harry the Blower on his return round with the down-going mails
that the little bush township of Tunumburra had become the scene of a
convocation of Pastoralists called to concert measures against the
threatened strike. The mailman reported that the district was now in a
state of great commotion, and the strikers, gathering silently in armed
force, prepared to defend their rights against a number of free
labourers whom the sheep-owners were importing from the South. The men
who had killed McKeith's horses were, according to the mailman,
entrenched in the Range, awaiting developments. It was thought that
nothing would happen on a large scale until the arrival of the free
labourers and the troops, which it was said the Government was sending.
Harry the Blower talked darkly of marauding bands, ambushed foes and
perilous encounters on his road, all of which waxed in number and
blood-thirstiness after the manner of Falstaff's men in buckram. But
nobody ever took Harry the Blower's yarns very seriously.
It would have been natural for Lady Bridget to work herself up into a
state of humanitarian excitement--the O'Hara's had always espoused
unpopular causes--but since the arrival of the English mail a curious
dreaminess had come upon her. She spent idle hours in the hammock on
the veranda, and would only rouse herself spasmodically to some trivial
burst of energy--perhaps a boiling water skirmish against white ants,
or a sudden fit of gardening--planting seeds, training the wild
cucumber vines upon the veranda posts, or watering the shrubs and
flowers within the rough paling fence that enclosed the house and
garden. A new-made garden, for ornament rather than for use, for the
staple produce was grown in the Chinaman's garden by the lagoon. Young
passion-fruit vines barely concealing the fences' nakedness, a mango, a
few small orange trees now in flower. A Brazilian cherry, two or three
flat-stone peach trees and loquets--all looking thirsty for rain--that
was all. The Old Humpey, as it was called, had creepers overgrowing its
roof, a nesting-place for frogs, lizards, snakes--and Lady Bridget,
brave enough for doughty deeds, could never overcome her terror of
horned beasts and reptiles. McKeith's office, where he entered branding
tallies and posted the station log, was in the Old Humpey, and two or
three bachelor bedrooms opposite the wing with kitchen and store. But
Lady Bridget lived chiefly in the new house--less picturesque with its
zinc roofing and deficiency of green drapings, but, being built on sawn
lengths of saplings, more or less fortified against snakes. In front
there was a great vacant space between the ground and the floor of the
house--pleasant enough in summer, when a gentle draught could find its
way through the cracks between the boards, but cold in winter, though
the northern winters were not sharp enough or long enough for this to
be a serious discomfort.
Nor, when Lady Bridget slept alone in the new house, did she mind much
the dogs and harmless animals that couched under the boards, they gave
her a sense of companionship. But there was a herd of goats--some of
them old and with big tough horns--which McKeith had started in his
bachelor days to provide milk when, as sometimes happened, the milch
cows failed; also to furnish savoury messes of kid's flesh--a pleasant
change from the eternal salt beef varied with wild duck. Occasionally
it happened, especially in mustering times, that nobody remembered to
pen the goats in their yard by the lagoon, and on these occasions they
would get under the house, and the noise of their horns knocking
against the floor of her bedroom would so effectively destroy Lady
Bridget's chances of sleep that she would rise in the night and drive
them into their fold. These were incidents which added variety to the
monotony of her life in the Bush.
The head-station was very quiet one afternoon, most of the hands being
out with the tailing mob; and Lady Bridget, in a restless mood, went
for a roam through the bush. She walked past the Chinamen's garden and
Fo Wung, carrying up buckets of water to his young cabbages, stopped to
smile blandly and report on his produce. But she was in no mood for the
interchange of remarks in pidgin English.
It was lonelier at the head of the lagoon. She could hear the trumpeter
geese tuning up in shrill cornet-like notes and the discordant shriek
of native-companions, as the long-legged grey birds stalked
consequentially at the water's edge. She disturbed a flock of parrots
in the white cedar tree, and a covey of duck rose with a whirring of
pinions and a mighty quacking, shaking the drips off their plumage so
that they glittered like diamonds in the sun. From the limbs of the
dead gum tree hung flying foxes, their bat-like wings extended limply,
and a gigantic crane stood in melancholy reflection upon one leg.
Lady Bridget crossed the gully and roamed the borders of the gidia
scrub. Here, in an occasional open patch, were wattles breaking into
yellow bloom, and sandalwood trees already in blossom, scenting the air
faintly and making bright splashes upon the grey and black background
of the mournful gidia. She filled her arms with flowers and wandered
on, long past the stockyards, into the fastnesses of the gully, where
lay dark pools almost empty now and where grey, volcanic looking rocks
seemed to make a rampart between the scrub and the head-station.
She was sitting there, her back against a boulder, the forest behind
her, so motionless that inquisitive bower-birds and leather-heads came
quite close to her feet, her small pointed chin poked forward, her eyes
shadowy and mysterious as the still waterpools below. She was visioning
in space that man who had once undoubtedly cast a strong spell upon
her. The spell had been broken by his own infidelity--if it WERE
infidelity of the real man. For she could never believe that he had not
truly loved her. Broken, secondly, by the counteracting influence of
her husband. But now it seemed that the news of him in Lady Gaverick's
letter had started the old vibrations afresh. It was as if an iron wall
between them had suddenly been knocked down and he had gained access to
her inner self. For months she had scarcely thought of him. Last night
she had seen him in a dream, and he had spoken to her. He had said, 'Of
course, I loved you. I never loved anyone better, but I felt that you
were not of an accommodating disposition--that I could not give you
anything you really wanted, and that we should not be happy together.'
That was all of the dream she had brought back. But she KNEW that there
had been a great deal more. The impression had been so vivid that she
could not rid herself of the fancy that he was within actual reach of
her. It was impossible to imagine him fourteen thousand miles distant.
She did not try now to fight against this haunting, but yielded herself
to the power of the dream. When she heard a footstep in the forest
behind her, she started and turned and stared into the dim aisles of
the gidia, as though she expected to see his ghost.
'Mithsis--mithsis--me Wombo--plenty my been look out for you. Plenty
mine frightened to go along a head-station.'
Lady Bridget laughed hysterically. What a contrast between the romantic
hero of her dreams and the figure of the black-boy before her. Wombo
had been in the wars. Very little was left of the trim understudy of
Moongarr Bill. He was hatless; his Crimean shirt was torn into ribbons;
his moleskin breeches were covered with blood and dirt; the strap belt,
with its sheath-knife and various pouches, was gone, and this, judging
from the state of his legs and feet, had been forcibly removed.
A gash from a tomahawk disfigured his head; the woolly hair was matted
with blood. But there remained still something of the PREUX CHEVALIER
about Wombo.
'Mine bring it gin belonging to me,' he announced with dignity, making
an introductory gesture towards what appeared almost an excresence upon
the black trunk of a gidia tree except for an old red blanket slung
round one shoulder, which only half covered a woman's dusky form.
'That Oola. Mine want 'im marry Oola. Black teller belonging to that
feller plenty COOLLA*. My been sneak camp. Me catch 'em Oola. Black
feller look out, throw 'im tomahawk, NULLA-NULLA*. My word! big feller
fight. Me YAN plenty quick. Oola YAN* plenty quick. Black feller come
after--throw 'im spear--close up MUMKULL*. BA'AL* can pull out spear,
Oola plenty cry.'
[*Coolla--in Blacks language, meaning Angry.]
[*Nulla-nulla--A black's weapon.]
[*Yan--To go away.]
[*Mumkull--To kill.]
[*Ba'al--No--Not.]
Oola joined in with the black's plaintive wail.
'YUCKE*! Poor fellow, Oola!'
[*Yucke!--Alas!]
Wombo pulled her forward. A comely half-caste who, as a child, had been
partially civilised by a stockman's wife on one of the Leura
out-stations, but who had, later, gone back to her tribe and married a
Myall, as the wild blacks are called. She was very young, soft and
round of outline, with hair straighter and more glossy than is usual
among her kind, and large black eyes now raining tears. She wiped them
away with a sooty hand, pink in the palm. Her left arm hung limp by her
side.
Lady Bridget jumped to her feet, all concern.
'Oh, you poor thing! You poor, poor thing,' she cried. For Wombo,
tweaking aside the concealing blanket, showed the smooth shaft of a
spear transfixed in the quivering flesh of Oola's arm, above the elbow.
He had broken off the long end of the spear to expedite their
flight--so he explained in his queer lingo--but Oola had cried so much
that he had not been able to draw out the rest of the shaft.
'BUJERI* YOU, white Mary!' pleaded Oola in the native formula. 'You gib
it medsin.... You gib it one old fellow skirt.... BA'AL, Oola got 'im
clothes... BA'AL got 'im ration... plenty sick this feller....' And she
beat her breast with the arm that was unhurt.
[*Bujeri--Very good.]
'Of course, I'll give you medicine--and food, and I'll look out
something for you to put on. Only for heaven's sake, stop crying,' said
Lady Bridget. 'Come along. You must have that spear pulled out and your
arm seen to. Come with me to the Humpey. Quick--MURRA* make haste.'
[*Murra make haste--To run quickly.]
But Wombo drew back, casting an affrighted glance down the gully
towards the crossing.
'Ba'al me go long-a Humpey--I believe Boss PHO-PHO*, Oola,' he said.
[*Pho-pho--To shoot.]
'Wombo, you are foolish. What for Boss shoot Oola?'
'YOWI*--I believe when Boss say PHO-PHO, my word! that one PHO-PHO.
Plenty black feller frightened.'
[*Yowi--Yes.]
Bridget pushed the unhappy gin along the track.
'You needn't be frightened. Boss has gone away.'
'Boss no sit down long-a Humpey?' Wombo looked relieved, and while
Bridget reassured him, the three moved on towards the crossing. In
answer to Lady Bridget's questioning the black-boy told his story as
they went. She already knew of Wombo's passion for the young gin, who
was within the prohibited degree of relationship, therefore TABU to
him, and who, moreover, was already legitimately wedded to a warrior of
the tribe. She knew also that McKeith had forbidden the black-boy,
under pain of severe penalty, to seek the coveted bride. Of course, it
was all nonsense about his shooting the poor creature, though no doubt,
in ordinary circumstances, he would have sent them off the station. But
hard as he was--and Lady Bridget had learned that her husband could be
very hard, he would never be inhuman, and, naturally, Oola's wound must
be dressed.
Lady Bridget hurried them over the crossing and up the hill. The white
men were all out with the cattle. She needed assistance, and seeing Mrs
Hensor at the kitchen window of the Bachelors' Quarters, called to her.
'Please come out at once, I want you.'
The woman's face became sullen on the instant.
'I can't come now. I'm in the middle of my baking.'
'But don't you see? The thing is important. This poor gin has a spear
through her arm--it must be attended to immediately. Wombo is hurt too.
The wounds must be washed and dressed.... Look at the poor creatures.'
Mrs Hensor contemptuously surveyed Wombo and his erring partner.
'Serve them right. He's stolen her from her husband and the Blacks have
given them what for. They don't need any fussing over, these niggers.
They are used to being knocked about.'
Lady Bridget's eyes blazed, but her tone was icy.
'I suppose you understand that I've given you my orders to attend to a
wounded fellow-creature.'
'Well, I don't call Blacks fellow-creatures. Do you suppose we should
not all be having spears thrown at us if the niggers weren't afraid of
Mr McKeith's gun?'
'You have my orders,' repeated Lady Bridget sharply, her wrath at white
heat.
'I take no orders from anybody but the Boss, and his orders were that
if Wombo brought the gin here, they'd got to be driven off,' retorted
Mrs Hensor.
'They will not be driven off. You will answer to your master for this
disobedience!' said Lady Bridget.
Mrs Hensor laughed insolently.
'Oh, I'm not afraid of Mr McKeith finding fault with ME,' and she
withdrew out of sight into the kitchen.