beauty and high intellect in women, and almost as startling in its
power for good or evil; but apart from the combination the wholesome
athlete is generally the more lovable. When his brawn is coupled with
a good disposition, he sees in woman a fragile flower that he longs
to protect, and measuring her weakness by his beautiful strength, is
easily imposed upon. His muscle is an engine a woman can unfailingly
command for her own purposes, whereas brilliance of intellect, though
it may command a great public position in the reflected glory of which
some women love to bask, nevertheless, under pressure in the domestic
arena, is liable to be too sharply turned against wives, mothers, and
daughters to be a comfortable piece of household furniture. On the
other hand, the athlete may have the muscles of a Samson, and yet,
being slow of thought and speech, be utterly defenceless in a woman's
hands. No matter how aggravatingly wrong she may be, he cannot bring
brute force to bear to vanquish a creature so delicate, and being
possessed of no other weapon, he is compelled to cultivate patience
and good temper. Also, health and strength are conducive to equability
of temper, and hence the domestic popularity of the man of brawn above
the one of brain, who is not infrequently exacting and crossly
egotistical in his family relations where the other would be lenient
and go-easy.
The silence of my guest and myself was presently broken by Dawn
turning about under the counterpane.
"Good gracious! what have you got there?" inquired Ernest. "Is it that
old terrier you used to have?"
"Terrier, indeed! I have here a far more beautiful pet. Because you
are such a good child I will allow you just one glance. Come now, be
careful."
The girl's dress was unbuttoned at the throat, displaying a perfect
curve of round white neck; her tumbled brown curls strayed over the
dimpled oval face; the long jetty lashes resting on the flushed cheeks
fringed some eyelid curves that would have delighted an artist; the
curling lips were slightly parted showing the tips of her pretty
teeth, and the lifted coverlet disclosed to view as lovely a sleeping
beauty as any of the armoured knights of old ever fought and died for.
The latter-day one, politely curious regarding my pet, bent over to
accord a casual glance, but the vision meeting his eyes sent the blood
in a crimson wave over his tanned cheeks and caused him to draw back
with a start. It was inconsistent that he should have been so
completely abashed at sight of a fully-dressed sleeping girl who was
placidly unconscious of his gaze, when it was his custom to regularly
occupy the stalls and enjoy the choruses and ballets composed of young
ladies very wide awake, and wearing only as much covering as compelled
by the law; but where is consistency?
"I had no idea it would--er--be a young lady," he stammered, keeping
his eyes religiously lowered, and fidgeting in a palsy of shyness such
as used to be an indispensable accomplishment of young ladies in past
generations.
"Just take a good look, she'll bear inspection," I said.
"I'd rather not, the young lady might not like it."
"But I'm giving you permission, she's mine, and then run before she
discovers you have pirated a glance. I will keep the secret."
He lifted his eyes, but so swiftly and hesitatingly that I could not
be sure that he had discerned the beauty that was blushing half
unseen, instead of being displayed under limelight and drawn attention
to by brass trumpets in accordance with the style of this advertisemal
age.
As Ernest went out Andrew came in and awakened Dawn with a request to
make him some dough-nuts for tea, but she ordered him to go to Carry
as it was her week in the kitchen.
"Bust this week in the kitchen! A feller can hear nothing else, it's
enough to give him the pip; it ought to be put up like a notice so it
could be known," he grumbled as he departed.
That evening Mrs Bray made one of her calls, which were always more
good-natured regarding the length of time she gave us than the tone of
her remarks about people.
The famous Mrs Tinker, it appeared, from the latest account of her
vagaries, had enlivened the lives of Noonoon inhabitants by swearing
in a hair-lifting manner at one of the local shows because her horses
had not been awarded first prize, &c., &c.
Whether, as Carry averred, it was this conversation that did the
mischief or not, the fact remains that I became too faint to speak,
and the girls would not leave me all night. I lay that way all the
next day too, so that when Ernest called to make inquiries and
discovered my state he took a turn at making himself useful,
prevailing upon Grandma Clay to allow him to do so by explaining that
he was a very firm friend of mine, and had had some experience of
invalids owing to his mother having been one for some years before her
death, both of which statements were perfectly true.
As I improved, I was anxious to discover what impression he had made
on the household, and cautiously sounded them.
"He seems to be a chap with some heart in him," said grandma. "He'd
put some of these fine lah-de-dahs to shame. I always like a man that
ain't above attending on a sick person. Like Jim Clay, he could put a
powltice on an' lift up a sick person better'n all the women I ever
see."
"It's always Jim Clay," said Dawn in an irreverent aside; "I never
heard of a man yet, whether he was tall or short, or squat or lean, or
young or old, but he was like Jim Clay, if he did any good. I'm about
dead sick of him."
"You don't seem to remember Jim Clay was your grandfather," I said, as
his relict left the room, "and that he is very dear in your
grandmother's memory. It is pleasing how she recalls him. Wait till
your hair is grey, my dear, and if you have some one as dearly
enshrined in your heart it will be a good sign that your life has not
been without savour."
"Yes, of course, I do forget to think of him as my grandfather, never
hearing of him only as this everlasting Jim Clay, and if he was like
that red-headed fellow it would take a lot of him to be remembered as
anything but a big pug-looking creature that I'd be ashamed to be seen
with."
This was not a propitious first impression, and as she was inclined to
be censorious I considered it diplomatic to point out his detractions,
knowing that the combative propensity of the young lady would then
seek for recommendations.
"Yes, he is a great, unattractive, red-headed-looking lump, isn't he?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that. He looks fine and healthy at all events, and
I do like to see a man that doesn't make one afraid he'll drop to
pieces if you look at him."
"But he's hopelessly red-headed," I opined.
"But it isn't that sandy, insipid sort of red. It's very dark and
thick, and his skin is clear and brown, not that mangy-looking sample
that usually goes with red hair," contended Dawn; and being willing
that she should retain this opinion, I let the point go.
There is one advantage in a heart trouble, that it often departs as
suddenly as it attacks, and ere it was again Carry's week in the
house, I was once more able to stroll round and depend upon Andrew for
entertainment.
He invited me to the dairy to see him turn the hand cream-separator,
and I remained to dry the discs out of its bowl while he washed them.
He had a conversational turn, and in his choice of subjects was a
patriot. He never went out of his realm for imported themes, but
entirely confined his patronage to those at hand. This day his
discourse was of blow-flies; I cared not though it had been of manure.
I had knocked around the sharp corners of life sufficiently to have
got a sensible adjustment of weights and measures, refinements and
vulgarities. Besides, I gratefully remembered the tears Andrew had
shed during my illness, and bore in mind that many a dandy who could
please me by his phraseology of choice anecdotes could not be more
than "bored" though I might die in torture at his feet.
"My word! I'm thankful for the winter for one thing," he began, "and
that's because there ain't any blow-flies. They'd give you the pip in
the summer. They used to be here blowin' everything they come across.
They'd blow the cream if we left it a day. They'd blow you if you
didn't look sharp. I had Whiskey taught to ketch 'em. Here, Whiskey!
Whiskey!" and as that mongrel appeared, his master tossed him pellets
of curds dipped in cream, and grinned delightedly as they were
fiercely snapped. "He thinks it's blow-flies. Great little Whiskey!
good little Whiskey, catch 'em blow-flies. By Jove! I've had enough
of farming," continued he, "it's the God-forsakenest game, but me
grandma won't let me chuck it. I notice no one with any sense stays
farmin'. They all get a job on the railway, or take to auctioneering,
or something with money in it. You're always scratchin' on a farm. You
should have been here in the summer when the tomatoes was ripe.
Couldn't get rid of 'em for a song--couldn't get cases enough. They
rotted in the field till the stink of them was worse than a chow's
camp, an' what didn't rot was just cooked in the sun. Peaches the
same, an' great big melons for a shilling a dozen. That's farming for
you! The only time you could sell things would be when you haven't got
'em. Whiskey can eat melon like a good 'un, and grapes too." Andrew
now threw out the wash-up water, pitching it on to Whiskey, who went
away whimpering aggrievedly, much to the delight of his master, and
illustrating that even the favourite pet of a youth has something to
put up with in this imperfect life.
TEN.
PROVINCIAL POLITICS AND SEMI-SUBURBAN DENTISTS.
May dawned over the world, and throughout New South Wales awoke a
stir, reaching even to the sleepy heart of Noonoon. This was owing to
the fact that the State Parliament was near the end of its term, and
political candidates for the ensuing election were already in the
field.
Though not many decades settled, the country had progressed to
nationhood, England allowing the precocious youngster this freedom of
self-government, and sending her Crown Prince to open her first
Commonwealth Parliament. Then the fledgling nation, bravely in the van
of progress, had invested its women with the tangible hall-mark of
full being or citizenship, by giving them a right to a voice in the
laws by which they were governed; and now, watched by the older
countries whose women were still in bondage, the women of this
Australian State were about to take part in a political election. Not
for the first time either,--let them curtsey to the liberality of
their countrymen!
The Federal elections, for which women were entitled to stand as
senatorial candidates, had come previously, and though old prejudice
had been too strong to the extent of many votes to grasp that a woman
might really be a senatrix, and that a vote cast for her would not be
wasted, still one woman candidate had polled 51,497 votes where the
winning candidate had gone in on 85,387, and this had been no
"shrieking sister" such as the clever woman is depicted by those who
fear progress, but a beautiful, refined, educated, and particularly
womanly young lady in the heyday of youth. The cowardly old sneer that
disappointment had driven her to this had no footing here, as she had
every qualification, except empty-headedness, to have ensured success
as a belle in the social world, had she been disposed to pad her own
life by means of a wealthy marriage instead of endeavouring to benefit
her generation in becoming a legislator. She was a fitting daughter of
the land of the Southern Sun, whose sons were among the first to admit
their sisters to equal citizenship with themselves, and she
brilliantly proved her fitness for her right by her wonderful ability
on the hustings, which had been free from any vocal shortcoming and
unacquainted with hesitation in replying to the knottiest question
regarding the most intricate bill.
The Federal election, however, in a sense had been farther
away--fought at long-range, while that of the State was brought right
to one's back door.
The Federal campaign had been freer from the provincial bickering
which was a prominent feature of the State election, and made it more
a hand-to-hand contest, where every elector was worthy of
consideration; and though women were debarred from entering the State
Parliament, yet they were now beings worth fawning upon for a vote,
and their addition to the ranks of the electors gave matters a decided
fillip.
The first intimation that the campaign had actually started reached me
one afternoon when Dawn drove me into town to see a dentist. The whole
Clay household had risen up against me patronising a local dentist.
"They're only blacksmiths," said Andrew. "I could tinker up a tooth as
good as they can with a bit of sealing-wax."
However, I could get no doctor to give me a longer lease of life than
twelve months, and as it was not a very important tooth, I considered
the local practitioners were sufficient to the evil.
The afternoon before, when Ernest had dropped in to see _me_, I had
_casually_ mentioned that Dawn and I were going up town next day, so
therefore, what more natural than, as we entered the main street, to
see him very busily inspecting wares in a saddler's shop--articles for
which he could have no use, and which if he had, a man of his means
could obtain of superior quality from Sydney. I diplomatically, and
Dawn ostentatiously, failed to notice him as we drove past to where
was displayed the legend--S. Messre, Chemist and Dentist, late C. C.
Rock-Snake, and where Dawn halted, saying, at the eleventh hour, "You
ought to go to Sydney, Charlie Rock-Snake was all right, but I don't
care for the look of this fellow."
Going to Sydney, however, would not serve my ends nearly so well as
consulting S. Messre; for while I was with him Dawn would remain
outside, and what more certain than that Mr R. Ernest Breslaw, walking
up the street and quite unexpectedly espying her, and being such a
friend of mine, should dawdle with her awaiting my reappearance, while
growing inwardly wishful that it might be long delayed.
I knocked on the counter of the dusty, dirty shop, and after a time
an extraordinary person appeared behind it.
"Are you Mr Messre?"
"I believe so. Hold hard a bit."
Probably he went to ascertain who he really was, for I was left
sitting alone until a splendidly muscular figure in a fashionable
pattern of tweeds halted opposite the vehicle holding my driver. I was
quite satisfied with Mr S. Messre's methods, though his initial, as
Andrew averred, might very well have stood for silly.
The golfing cap came off the heavy red locks, while the bright brown
ones under the smart felt hat with the pom-poms, bobbed in response,
and Mr S. Messre came upon me again, wiping his fingers on a soiled
towel, and tugging each one separately after the manner of childhood.
"Did you want a tooth pulled?"
"Well, I wished to consult you dentally, but not in public," I said,
as two urchins came in and listened with all their features.
"Well, hold hard a bit and I'll take you inside."
I held or rather sat hard on the tall hard chair, and heard Ernest
explaining to Dawn that he had been swimming in the sun, which made
his face as red as his hair, for he gave her to understand that such
was not his usual complexion. His red locks, very dark and handsome,
which lent him a distinction and endeared him to me, were such a
sensitive point with him that his mind was continually reverting to
them, and that audacious Dawn unkindly replied--
"It wouldn't do to be all red. If my hair were red I'd dye it green or
blue, but red I would not have."
"But it's a good serviceable colour for a _man_," meekly protested the
knight.
"Perhaps for a _fighting_ man," retorted the young minx with no
contradictory twinkle in her eye; "but I could never trust a
red-headed person: all that I know are deceitful."
I was dismayed. How would a gentle young athlete weather this? To a
perky little man of more wits than muscle, or to a gay old Lothario,
it would have been an incentive to the chase, but I feared Dawn was
too horribly, uncompromisingly given to speaking what she felt,
irrespective of grace, to expand this young Romeo to love; but much
merciless fire will be stood from beauty, and he made a valiant
defence.
"There are exceptions to every rule, Miss Dawn. I never was known as
deceitful; ask any one who knows me."
"I don't know any one who knows you."
"Ask your friend inside, I think she'll give me a good character."
"Quite the reverse. If you heard what she says about you, you'd never
be seen in Noonoon again;" but this assertion was made with such a
roguish smile on eye and lip that Ernest took up a closer position by
stepping into the gutter and placing one foot on the step of the sulky
and a corresponding hand on the dashboard railing; and in that
position I left them, with yellow-haired Miss Jimmeny from the corner
pub. walking by on the broken asphalt under the verandahs, and casting
a contemptuous and condemnatory glance at the forward Dawn who
favoured the men.
Mr S. Messre led the way to a place at the back of the shop which was
layered with dust and strewn with cotton-wool and dental appliances,
some of them smeared from the preceding victims, evidently. He did not
seem to know how to dispose of me, so I placed myself in the
professional chair and invited him to examine the broken molar.
"The light is bad here," he remarked, fumbling with my head, and
making towards my face with one of the soiled instruments.
"That is not my fault," I replied.
"This is him!" he further remarked, tapping my cheek with a finger.
"Yes."
"He wants patching."
"So _he_ leads me to imagine."
"The nerve would want killing."
"Quite so, and to attend to its wants I'm here."
"I'd take eight shillings to kill the nerve."
"Would you use them as an apparatus to execute it?"
"Then I'd take twelve or thirteen shillings to fill it," he continued.
I was interested in the uniqueness of his methods.
"Would you purpose to powder the shillings or use them whole--I would
have thought an alligator's or shark's tooth would scarcely require
that quantity of material?"
Mr Messre stared at me in a dazed manner.
"I wouldn't touch the tooth under that," he continued.
"Is there another tooth under it? then extract this one and give the
other a fair chance."
"It would be a lot of trouble," he kept on, without specially replying
to my remark.
"Perhaps so; when one comes to think of it, teeth, I suppose, are not
filled without some exercise on the part of the dentist."
"I wouldn't think of touching that tooth for less than a guinea; why
it would take at least an hour to do it."
"This is the first intimation I've had that dentists calculated to
mend teeth without spending any time on them," I said.
Mr Messre didn't seem to grasp the drift of my remarks, and as I felt
unequal to maintaining the conversation for a more extended period, I
announced my intention of thinking about what he had said. He said it
would be as well, and I emerged to find Ernest had so far progressed
as to be seated in the sulky holding my parasol over Dawn.
Youth and beauty is privileged to command an athlete to hold its
sunshade, while old age has difficulty in finding so much as a small
boy to carry its basket across the street. Mayhap this is why it is
largely the elderly and frequently the unattractive people who fight
for honest rights for their class and sex, while it is from pretty
young women's lips issues most of the silly rubbish anent it being
entirely women's fault that men will not conform to their "influence"
in all matters. Only a very small percentage can regard conditions
from any but a selfish point of view or conceive of any but their own
shoe-pinch.
"I happened to see Miss Dawn here and waited to ask you how you are,"
said Ernest.
"Just what you should have done," I replied; "and now if you can wait
till I investigate another dentist I want your opinion on a purchase I
am making."
"Oh, certainly," he hastened to reply; "I'm doing a loaf this
afternoon. I thought I heard my oar crack this morning, so came for
some leather to tack round it."
This in elaborate explanation of his presence there.
The second dentist proved the antithesis of his contemporary, being
short, pleasant, and bright.
"I'll tell you what," he said, laughing engagingly, "the best thing to
be done with that tooth is to dress it with carbolic acid. Now this is
a secret."
"One of those that only a few don't know, I suppose."
"Perhaps so," he said, laughing still more pleasantly.
"You can do this tooth just as well as I can. Get three penno'worth of
acid and put some in once or twice a-day and the nerve will be dead in
two or three days, and I'll do the rest."
As he proved such an amiable individual, though probably an
exceedingly suburban dentist, I got rid of half an hour in desultory
chat, as I could see from the window that the knight and the lady, if
not progressing like a house on fire, were at least enjoying
themselves in a casual way.
"Did you have only one tooth to be attended to?" inquired Dawn when I
appeared.
"Yes; and I fear that it will be one too many for Noonoon dentists," I
replied. I could think of nothing upon which to ask Ernest's advice,
so I feigned that I was not feeling well enough for any further worry
that afternoon, but would command his services at a future date.
I now held the pony while Dawn disappeared into a shop and reappeared
with an acquaintance who invited us to attend a political meeting that
night. The electors, alarmed at the prodigal propensities of the
sitting government, were forming an Opposition League to remedy
matters, and the first step was to choose one of the two candidates
offering themselves as representatives of this party for Noonoon. The
first one was to speak that night in the Citizens' Hall, and by paying
a shilling one could become a member of the League, and vote for this
candidate or the other.
"Oh, if I only had a vote!" regretfully exclaimed Dawn.
"He's a young chap named Walker, from Sydney,--very rich, I believe.
Do you know him?" Mrs Pollaticks inquired of me.
"I've heard of him," I said, exchanging glances with Ernest, "and
should like to hear him, if convenient."
"I'll drive you in," volunteered Dawn.
"If you're around you might act as groom," I suggested to Ernest, and
he gladly responding, it was agreed that we should begin
electioneering that night.
"I knew Ernest would be delighted to be with us, he takes great
pleasure in my company," I remarked with assumed complacence as we
drove home; and I watched Dawn smile at my conceit in imagining any
one took pleasure in my company while she was present, and that any
normal male under ninety should do so would have been so phenomenal
that she had reason for that derisive little smile.
"You said he was hopelessly red-headed," she remarked; "why, I think
he has a handsome kind of red hair. I never thought red hair could be
nice, but Mr Ernest's is different."
I smiled to myself.
"I never thought much of men, but this one is different," has been
said by more than one bride; and, "I never could suffer infants, but
this kid is different to all I've seen," is an expression often heard
from proud young fathers.
"His young lady thinks so at all events," I innocently remarked, and
we fell into silence complete.
ELEVEN.
ANDREW DISGRACES HIS "RARIN'."
The silence that fell upon Dawn and myself was unbroken when we went
to tea and seemed to have affected the whole company, or else it was
the conversational powers of Andrew, who was absent, which were
wanting to enliven us.
"He ought to be home," said grandma. "He's got no business away, and
the place can't be kep' in a uproar for him when the girls want to go
out."
The old lady had determined to take a vigorous interest in politics,
and spoke of going to hear the meetings later on herself.
It presently transpired that Andrew had not been looking to his
grandma for all that went into his "stummick" so religiously as he
should have been. Just as he was under discussion he made a dramatic
entry, and fell breathlessly in his grandma's arm-chair near the
fireplace. The usual occupant glared at him in astonishment and
demanded "a explanation," which came immediately, but not from Andrew.
Instead there was a loud and imperative knocking at a side door, and
when Carry, after cursing the white ants which had made the door hard
to open by throwing it out of plumb with their ravages, at last got
it open, there appeared an irate old man carrying a stout stick. It
was plain that he too had been running,--in short, was in pursuit of
Andrew, who had quite collapsed in the chair.