own individuality, smacking somewhat of town and country and yet of
neither. Some of the older ones patronised the flowing beards and
sartorial styles "all the go way up in Ironbark," yet if put Out-Back
would have been as much new chums as city people, and were wont to
regard honest unvarnished statements of bush happenings as "snake
yarns"; while the youths of these parts combined the appearance of the
far bush yokel and the city larrikin, and were to be seen following
the plough with cigarettes in their mouths.
The small holdings were cut into smaller paddocks, the style of fence
mostly patronised being two or three strands of savage barbed wire
stretched from post to post. This insufficient separation of stock was
made adequate by the cattle themselves carrying the remainder of the
white man's burden of fencing around their necks, in the form of a
hampering yoke made of a forked tree-limb with a piece of plain
fencing-wire to close the open ends. This prevented them pushing
between the wires, and it was a pathetically ludicrous sight to see
the calves at a very tender age turned out an exact replica of their
elders. All the places opened on to the roads like streets; and to go
across country was a sore ordeal, as one had to uncomfortably cross
roughly upturned crop-land, and every few hundred yards roll under a
line of barbed wire about a foot from the ground, at the risk of
reefing one's clothes and the certainty of dishevelment. To walk out
on the main roads and stumble over the loose stones ankle-deep in the
dust was torture. Some averred they had known no repairs for ten
years, and that they were as good as they were, because to have been
worse was impossible. Walking in this case being no pleasure, I
bethought me of riding for gentle exercise, and inquired of Grandma
Clay the possibilities in that respect.
"Ride! there ain't nothink to ride in this district, only great
elephant draughts or little tiddy ponies the size of dogs," she said
with unlimited scorn; "I never see such crawlers, they go about in
them pokin' little sulkies, and even the men can't ride. In my young
days if a feller couldn't ride a buck-jumper the girls wouldn't look
at him, an' yet down here at one of the shows last year in the prize
for the hunters, the horses had to be all rode by one man; there
wasn't another young feller in the district fit to take a blessed moke
over a fence. I felt like goin' out an' tacklin' it meself, I was that
disgusted. I never was a advocate for this _great_ ridin' that racks
people's insides out an' cripples them, there ain't a bit of necessity
for it, but there is reason in everythink, an' they're goin' to the
other extreme, and will have to be carried about on feather-beds in a
ambulance soon if they keep on as they are. There's nothink as good as
it was in the old days. As for a woman ridin' here, all the town would
go out to gape like as she was somethink in the travellin' show
business. I used to ride w'en I come down here first,--that was
sixteen year ago,--but every one asked me such questions, an' looked
at me like a Punch an' Judy show, that I got sick of it. I rode into
Trashe's at the store there one day, an' w'en I was comin' out he
says, 'Will you have a chair to get on?' an' as he didn't seem to be
man enough to sling me on, I said I supposed so. He goes for one of
them tallest chairs--it would be as easy to get on the horse as
it--an' I sez, 'Thanks, I'm not ridin' a elephant, one of them little
chairs would do.' But even that didn't seem to content him; he put it
high on the pavement an' put the horse in the gutter. Then, instead of
puttin' the reins over the horse's head proper, he left them on the
hook, an' with both hands an' all his might holds the beast short by
them in front of its jaw, like as it was the wildest bull from the
Bogongs. The idiot! Supposin' the beast was flash an' pulled away from
him, where would I be without the reins? That about finished me, I was
sick of it, as I could not have believed any man, even out of a
asylum, could be so simple about puttin' a person on a horse."
For this kind of exercise there seemed no promising outlet, and I was
put to it to think of some other. As grandma said, with few
exceptions, the only horses in the district were draughts and ponies.
Every effect has a cause, and the reason of this was that these big
horses were the only ones properly adapted to agriculture, and the
smallness of the holdings did not admit of hacks being kept for mere
pleasure, so the cheapest knockabout horse to maintain was a pony, as
not only did it take less fodder and serve for the little saddle use
of this place, but tethered to a sulky, took the wives and children
abroad. It was the land of sulkies,--made in all sizes to fit the pony
that had to draw them, and of quality in accordance with the purse
that paid for them,--and a pair of horses and a buggy was a rare
sight.
Andrew suggested that I should go rowing, and glowingly recommended a
little two-man craft named the _Alice_, and as I could row well in my
young days, I determined to test her capacity by going up stream very
gently, as my time was unlimited and my strength painfully the
reverse. It was a crisp day towards the end of April, so I was feeling
brisker than usual, and the _Alice_ was deserving of her good
reputation. The Noonoon was one of the noblest and most beautiful
streams in the State, and above the substantial and unique old bridge
its deep, calm waters stretched for about two miles as straight as a
ribbon, in a reach made historic because it has been the racecourse of
some of the greatest sculling matches the world has known. Orange and
willow-trees were reflected in the clear depths of the rippleless
flow, and lured by its beauty, the responsiveness of my craft, and an
unusual cheerfulness, I foolishly overdid my strength. I was thinking
of Dawn. Her girlish confidence regarding the desire of her hot young
heart had so appealed to me that I was exercised to discover a
suitable knight, for this and not a career I felt was the needful
element to complete her life and anchor her restless girlish energy.
To tell her so, however, would ruin all. Time must be held till the
appearance of the hero of the romance I intended to shape. With this
end in view I thought of recommending her grandma to let her voice be
trained. Two years at the very least would thus be gained, and if
properly floated and advertised in the matrimonial field, what may not
be accomplished in that time by a beautiful and vivacious girl of
eighteen or nineteen? I was recalled from such speculations by finding
that it was beyond me to row another stroke, and I was in a fix. A
slight wind turned the boat, and she drifted on to a fallen tree a
little below the surface, and, though not upsetting, stuck there, and
was too much for me to get off.
At that time of the year, except very occasionally, the river was free
from boaters and the fishers who told of the fish that used to be got
there in other times, so there was nothing to do but wait until my
absence caused anxiety, when some one would surely come after me. Not
a very alarming plight if one were well, but I felt one of my old
cruel attacks was at hand, which was not encouraging. No one was
within sight, but in case there should be a ploughman over a rise
within hearing, I coo-eed long and well. My voice had been trained. I
coo-eed three times, allowing an interval to elapse, and then settled
into the bottom of the boat to await developments. Soon I was
disturbed by the plunk! plunk! of a swimmer, and saw a young man
approaching by strong rapid strokes. It is strange how hard it is to
recognise any one when only their face is above water and one meets
them in an unexpected place, and though this face seemed familiar
there was nothing unusual in that, as I knew so many theatre patrons'
faces in a half fashion. My rescuer having ascertained the simple
nature of my dilemma, and easily gaining the boat by reason of the
log, exclaimed--
"Why, it's never you! What on earth are you doing here?" and I
responded--
"Ernest Breslaw! It's never you! What are _you_ doing here? _I'm_
stuck on this log."
"And I've come to get you off it," he laughed.
"Yes, but otherwise? This may be a suitable cove for a damaged hull,
but what can a newly-launched cruiser like you be doing here?"
"I'm in training, and was just taking a plunge; it's first-class!" he
said enthusiastically, and looking at his splendid muscles, enough to
delight the eye of even such a connoisseur in physique as myself, and
well displayed by a neat bathing-suit, there was no need to inquire
for what he was in training. 'Twas no drivelling pen-and-ink
examination such as I could have passed myself, but something needing
a Greek statue's strength of thew.
"Are you feeling ill?" he considerately inquired, and as I assured him
to the contrary, though I was feeling far from normal, he put me out
on the bank while he rowed up stream for his clothes and returned to
take me home. Having encased himself in some serviceable tweeds and a
blue guernsey, he rolled me in his coat ere beginning to demolish the
homeward mile--an infinitesimal bagatelle to such a magnificent pair
of arms. I enjoyed the play of the broad shoulders and ruddy cheeks,
and did not talk, neither did he. He was an athlete, not a
conversationalist, while I was a conversationalist lacking sufficient
athletic strength to keep up my reputation just then.
"It was very silly of you to come out alone or attempt to row in your
state of health! It might have been your death," he presently remarked
in a grandfatherly style. "Where are you putting up?"
"At Clay's."
"I know; the old place with the boats," he replied as the _Alice_
whizzed along.
"I was aching for diversion," I said, in excuse for the rashness of my
act.
"Well, I can take you for a pull now. I'll be here for a few weeks.
Will you come to-morrow afternoon? Would three o'clock suit you?" he
inquired as he moored. "The scenery is magnificent farther up the
river."
"Yes, if I'm not here at three o'clock you'll know that I'm not able
to come. You are very good, Ernest, to waste time with me."
"I'm only too proud to be able to row you about and expend a little
despised brute force in returning all the entertainment with brains in
it you have given me in the past."
"Yes, at the cost of anything under 7s. 6d. an evening,--am I to pay
you that for rowing me?"
"Put it in the hospital-box," he said with a laugh that displayed his
strong white teeth between his firm bold lips. He was altogether a
sight that was more than good in my eyes.
I found I was not strong enough to spring ashore, but young Breslaw
managed that and my transit up the steep bank to the house with an
ease and gentleness so dear to woman's heart, that the strength to
accomplish it is the secret of an athlete being in ninety per cent of
cases a woman's ideal.
"Oh, I say," as he was leaving me at the gate, "if you mention me,
speak of me as R. Ernest, as I've dropped the Breslaw where I'm
staying. I don't want wind of my being here to get into the papers.
I'm practising in the dark, as I'd like to give some of the cracks a
surprise licking."
"Very well, I'm under an alias too, so please don't forget. To all
except a few theatre patrons I'm as dead as ditch-water; but some one
might recognise the old name, and it would be very unpleasant."
"Right O! To-morrow at three, then, I'll give you a pull," he said,
doffing his cap from his heavy ruddy locks, now drying into waves and
gleaming a rival hue in the setting sun, as he bounded down the bank
and made his way along the river-edge to the bridge, as his place of
sojourn was farther up than Clay's and on the other side.
The excitement of thus meeting him had somewhat revived me, for here
at once, as though in response to my wish, was a fitting knight to
play a leading _rôle_ with my young lady, the desire for whose
wellbeing had taken grip of me. For her sweet sake, and the sake of
the fragrant manliness of the stalwart and deserving knight, I
straightway resolved to enter the thankless and precarious business of
matchmaking, one in which I had not had one iota of experience; but as
women have to ace marriage, domesticity, and mostly all the issues of
life assigned them, without training, I did not give up heart. As a
first effort I determined that Dawn should chaperon me when I went for
my row on the morrow. As I looked at the sun sinking behind the blue
hills and shedding a wonderfully mellow light over the broad valley, I
thought of my own life, in which there had been none to pull a
heart-easing string, and the bitterness of those to whom that for
which they had fought has been won so late as to be Dead Sea fruit,
took possession of me.
The doctors had several long and fee-inspiring terms for my malady,
but I knew it to be an old-fashioned ailment known as heart-break--the
result of disappointment, want of affection, and over-work. The old
bitterness gripped the organ of life then; it brought me to my knees.
I tried to call out, but it was unavailing. Sharp, fiendish pain, and
then oblivion.
EIGHT.
GRANDMA TURNS NURSE.
When I came to it was dark enough for lights, Dawn's well-moulded
hands were supporting my head, Grandma Clay's voice was sternly
engineering affairs, and Andrew was blubbering at the foot of the bed
on which I was resting.
I tried to tell them there was no cause for alarm, and to beg
grandma's pardon for turning her house into a "sick hospital," but
though not quite unconscious, I appeared entirely so.
"I wish you had sense to have gone for Dr Tinker when Dr Smalley
wasn't in," said the old lady, with nothing but solicitude in her
voice.
The sternness in evidence when I had been trying to gain entrance to
her house was entirely absent.
"I'm afraid she's dead," said Dawn.
"Oh, she ain't; is she, Dawn?" sobbed Andrew. "She was a decent sort
of person. A pity some of those other old scotty-boots that was here
in the summer didn't die instead." And that cemented a firm friendship
between the lad and myself. An individual utterly alone in the world
prizes above all things a little real affection.
Presently there was a clearance in the room, effected by the doctor,
who, after a short examination, pronounced my malady a complication of
heart troubles, gave a few instructions, and further remarked, "Send
up for the mixture. She isn't dead, but she may snuff out before
morning. She's bound to go at a moment's notice, sometime. Give her
plenty of air. If she has any friends she ought to be sent to them if
she pulls through this."
Grandma gave the meagre details she knew concerning me, and as the
practitioner, whom I took to be a veterinary surgeon called in for the
emergency, went out, he said--
"If she dies to-night you can send me word in the morning; that will
be soon enough; and if I don't hear from you I'll call again
to-morrow."
"She ain't goin' to die if I can stop her," said grandma when he had
departed. "I'll bring her to with a powltice. I ain't given to be
cumflummixed by what a doctor says; many a one they give up is walking
about as strong as bull-beef to-day. I never see them do no good in a
serious case. They are right enough to set a bone or sew up a cut, but
when you come to think of it, what could be expected of them? They
know a little more than us because they've hacked up a few bodies an'
know how the pieces fit together, but as for knowin' what's goin' on,
they ain't the Almighty, and ain't to be took notice of. The way they
know about the body is the same as you and Carry know the kitchen, an'
could go in the dark an' feel for anythink while all was well, but if
anythink strange was there you couldn't make it out," and setting to
work, brewing potions and applying remedies of her own, the practical
old lady soon brought me around so that I was able to make my
apologies.
"Good Heavens! What do you take us for?" she exclaimed. "It would be a
fine kind of a world if we wasn't a little considerate to each other.
It does the young people good to learn 'em a little kindness. I
couldn't be askin' people like Carry there to wait on people, but it's
Dawn's week in the house an' she'll look after you, an' you needn't be
wantin' to clear out to the hospital. You won't be no better looked
after there than here."
Never was more tactful kindness on shorter acquaintance.
Little Miss Flipp undertook to sit by my bed during the early watches
of the night, for they could not be persuaded to leave me alone. Her
eyes bore evidence of many more sleepless watches, but the poor little
thing did not unburden her heart to me. Dawn appeared to relieve her
at 2 A.M., and the engaging child manfully struggled against the sleep
that leadened the pretty blue eyes till morning, when grandma, brisk
as a cricket, took her turn.
At eleven I was interested by the doctor's entrance. He came on
tiptoe, but like a great proportion of male tiptoeing it defeated its
intention and made more noise than walking. Bearing down upon grandma,
he inquired in a huge whisper, "How is she?"
At this juncture I opened my eyes, so he cheerfully remarked, in a
strong twang known by some supercilious English as the "beastly
colonial accent"--
"So you didn't peg out after all!"
This being the language applied to stock, confirmed me in the notion
that he was a veterinary. I had once before heard it applied to a
human being in a far bush place, where a man who lived unhappily with
his wife one morning remarked to a neighbour that "The missus nearly
pegged out last night," and it was considered a fitting remark for
such a monster as this man was supposed to have been, but this doctor
said it quite naturally.
I found him a friendly and communicative fellow, and as he gave in an
hour's gossip with grandma and me for one fee, I was willing to take
it to pass away a dull morning.
"What on earth did you go rowing for?" he asked me.
"The roads are too bad to go walking."
"That's only within range of the municipality. The council wants
bursting up. They can't do anything with everything mortgaged to old
Dr Tinker. He holds the whole thing. It's a pity he wouldn't peg out
one of these nights, and we might get something done. But it's not him
who has the money--it's the old woman."
"That's her Mrs Bray was tellin' us walloped the girl for bein'
admired by the old doctor," explained grandma.
"Money, that's what he married her for," continued the doctor. "I
don't know where he could have picked her up. Some say she is a
publican's widow, but Jackson, the solicitor here, has a different
hypothesis. He says he's seen her running along carrying five cups and
saucers of tea at once, and no one but a ship's waitress could do
that. At any rate she's a great man of a woman; can swear like a
trooper if things don't go right. She's got the old man completely
cowed."
"Am I to infer that cowing her spouse and swearing outrageously makes
her _man_-like?" I laconically inquired. But the doctor's
understanding didn't seem to go in for small satirical detail, he
conversed on a more wholesale fashion, rattling on for a good
half-hour to a patient for whom quietude was necessary, lest she
should "peg out."
"Ain't he a bosker?" enthusiastically commented Andrew, coming in to
see what I had thought of this doctor, who was the idol of Noonoon.
"Has he a large practice?" I cautiously inquired, seeking to discover
was he really a doctor.
"My word! Nearly all the people go to him, he's so friendly and don't
stick on the jam--speaks to you everywhere, and has jokes about
everything."
"He's a fine man!" corroborated grandma.
"Yes; must be more than six feet high," I responded.
"An' such a gentleman, he's never above having a yarn with you about
anythink and everythink."
"Oh, well," I said, "any time I take these turns just send for him."
One doctor was as harmless as another to me. I knew it would relieve
the household to have a medico, and he could not injure me, seeing I
accorded his medicine and advice about as much deference as the hum of
a mosquito.
"Is he a family man?" I asked.
"Yes; so there are all your chances gone in one slap," said Carry,
appearing to inquire my state.
I did not tell her there was the most insuperable of all barriers in
the way of my marrying any one, and that I had no desire if I could.
The first I did not want known, and the second would not be believed
if it were, because, though woman is somewhat escaping from her
shackles, the skin of old crawl subjection still clings sufficiently
tight for it to be beyond ordinary belief that one could be other than
constantly on the look-out to secure a berth by appending herself to
some man, and more especially does this suspicion hang over a spinster
with her hair as grey as mine, and who takes up a position at a
boarding-house which is supposed to be the common hunting-ground of
women forced on to the matrimonial war-path.
"He has seven little children, and one's a baby, an' his wife is a
poor broken-down little thing near always in the hospital. You'd
wonder how he married her, _he's_ such a fine-looking man," vouchsafed
Andrew.
"Such a fine man that you'd wonder concerning several other patent
facts about him," I responded.
There was quite a chorus in favour of him now. He was evidently a true
gentleman in his patients' eyes, because he was not above stopping to
talk to them in their own vernacular about local gossip, and had the
reputation of great good nature in regard to the bills of the poor,
and they loved his jokes. They were of the class within grasp of the
elementary sense of humour of his audience. This type of gentleman he
undoubtedly was, but to that possessed of graceful tact and expressing
itself in good diction--by some considered necessary attributes of a
gentleman--he could lay no claim. Neither could he to that ideal
enshrined in my heart, who would not have had seven little
children--one of them a baby--and a poor little broken-down wife at
the same time; but as to what is really a gentleman depends on the
attitude of mind.
NINE.
THE KNIGHT HAS A STOLEN VIEW OF THE LADY.
Grandma Clay kept me in bed that day, so I forgot all about my
appointment on the river until some time after three, when Andrew
announced from the doorway--
"A man wants to know can he see you?"
"Who can he be?"
"He's a puddin'-faced, red-headed bloke, wearin' a blue sweater under
his coat like the bike riders," was Andrew's very unknightly
description of the knight whom I had chosen to play lead in the drama
of the beautiful young lady at Clay's.
"That's a particular friend of mine, you may show him in," I said.
"Oughtn't Dawn to be woke up first and told to scoot out of that?"
said he.
Dawn was one of those young beings so thoroughly inured to easy living
that the few hours' sleep she had lost the night before had made her
so dozy when she had come to keep me company now, that I had persuaded
her to rest beside me on the broad bed, where, much against Andrew's
sense of propriety, she was fast asleep.
"I'll hide her thus," I said, covering her with the counterpane, for
it would not be good stage management to allow the lady to escape
when a fitting knight was on the threshold. This satisfied Andrew, who
withdrew to usher in the "puddin'-faced, red-headed bloke," who sat in
the doctor's chair, and made a few ordinary remarks about the weather
and some equally kind about my state of health.
When in the company of ladies the only brilliance in evidence about my
young friend was the colour of his hair, so there was little danger of
his waking Dawn with his chatter, as he sat inwardly consumed with a
desire to escape. As I lay with my hand where I could feel the girl's
healthy breathing, I wondered would she too dismiss my chosen knight
as pudding-faced and red-headed, or would she see him with my eyes!
His locks certainly were of that most attractive shade hair can be,
and his good looks were further enhanced by a clear tanned skin and
dark eyes. His large clean-shaven features had the fulness and
roundness of unspent youth in full bloom, and he was far from the
small bullet-headed type, which accounted for Andrew's designation of
"puddin'-faced." I had always found him one of the most virile and
upright young creatures I had ever seen, and he had endeared himself
to me by his simple, untainted manliness, and the fragrant evidence of
health his presence distilled. Dawn, too, was so robust that there was
a likelihood of her being attracted by her opposite, and inclined to
favour a carpet knight before one of the open field.