MASTERLESS MEN
Naomi had seated herself on the tall stool at the bookkeeper's desk, on
which she had placed in array the silver that was still unclean. This
included a fine old epergne, of quaint design and exceedingly solid
proportions; a pair of candlesticks, in the familiar form of the
Corinthian column--more modern, but equally handsome in their way; a
silver coffee-pot with an ivory handle; and a number of ancient skewers.
She tackled the candlesticks first. They were less tarnished than might
have been expected, and in Naomi's energetic hands they soon regained
their pristine purity and lustre. As she worked she talked freely of her
father, and his family in Wales, to Engelhardt, for whose benefit she
had unpacked many of the things which she had already cleaned, and set
them out upon the counter after shutting it down as before. He, too, was
seated, on the counter's farther edge, with his back half-turned to the
door. And the revelation of so much treasure in that wild place made him
more and more uneasy.
"I should have thought you'd be frightened to have this sort of thing on
the premises," he could not help saying.
"Frightened of what?"
"Well--bushrangers."
"They don't exist. They're as extinct as the dodo. But that reminds me!"
She broke off abruptly, and sat staring thoughtfully at the door, which
was standing ajar. She even gave the steps of her Corinthian column a
rest from tooth-brush and plate-powder.
"That reminds you?"
"Yes--of bushrangers. We once had some here, before they became
extinct."
"Since you've had the plate?"
"Yes; it was the plate they were after. How they got wind of it no one
ever knew."
"Is it many years ago?"
"Well, I was quite a little girl at the time. But I never shall forget
it! I woke in the night, hearing shots, and I ran into the veranda in my
night-dress. There was my father behind one of the veranda posts, with a
revolver in each hand, roaring and laughing as though it were the
greatest joke in the world; and there were two men in the store veranda,
just outside this door. They were shooting at father, all they knew, but
they couldn't hit him, though they hit the post nearly every time. I'll
show you the marks when we go over to lunch. My father kept laughing and
shooting at them the whole time. It was just the sort of game he liked.
But at last one of the men fell in a heap outside the door, and then the
other bolted for his horse. He got away, too; but he left something
behind him that he'll never replace in this world or the next."
"What was that?" asked Engelhardt with a long breath.
"His little finger. My father amputated it with one of his shots. It was
picked up between this and the place where he mounted his horse. Father
got him on the wing!" said Naomi, proudly.
"Was he caught?"
"No, he was never heard of again."
"And the man who was shot?"
"He was as dead as sardines. And who do you suppose he turned out to
be?"
Engelhardt shook his head.
"Tigerskin the bushranger! No less! It was a dirty burgling business for
a decent bushranger to lose his life in, now wasn't it? For they never
stuck up the station, mind you; they were caught trying to burst into
the store. Luckily, they didn't succeed. The best of it was that at the
inquest, and all that, it never came out what it was they really wanted
in our store. Soon afterward my father had the windows blocked up and
the whole place cemented over, as you see it now."
Naomi was done. Back went the tooth-brush to work on the Corinthian
column, and Engelhardt saw more of the pretty hair, but less of the
sweet face, as she bent to her task with redoubled vigor. Sweet she most
certainly was in his sight, and yet she could sit there, and tell him of
blood spilt and life lost before her own soft eyes, as calmly as though
such sights were a natural part of a young girl's education. For a space
he so marvelled at her that there was room in his soul for no other
sensation. Then the towering sun struck down through the skylight,
setting light to the silver, and brushing the girl's hair as she leant
forward, so that it shone like spun copper. From that moment the
piano-tuner could only and slavishly admire; but he was not allowed much
time for this slightly perilous recreation. Abruptly, impulsively, as
she did most things, Naomi raised her face and gave him a nod.
"Now, Mr. Engelhardt, it's your turn to talk. I've done my share. Who
are you, where do you come from, and what's your ambition in life? It
really is time I knew something more about you."
The poor fellow was so taken aback, and showed it so plainly, that Naomi
simplified her question without loss of time.
"It doesn't matter who you are, since you're a very nice young
man--which is the main thing. And I know that you hail from old
England, which is all I have any business to know. But come! you must
have some ambitions. I like all young men to have their ambitions. I
distrust them when they have none. So what's yours? Out with it quick!"
She discerned delight behind his blushes.
"Come on, I can't wait! What is it?"
"I suppose it's music."
"I knew it. Oh, but that's such a splendid ambition!"
"Do you really think so?"
"It's grand! But what do you aspire to do? Mephistopheles or Faust in
the opera? Or sentimental songs in your dress-suit, with a tea-rose in
your button-hole and a signet-ring plain as a pike-staff to the back
row? Somehow or other I don't think you're sleek enough for a tenor or
coarse enough for a bass. Certainly I know nothing at all about it."
"Oh, Miss Pryse, I can't sing a bit!"
"My dear young man, I've heard you."
"I only tried because they made me--and to sell my wretched songs."
"Then is it to be solos on the piano?"
"I'm not good enough to earn my rations at that."
"The organ--and a monkey? Burnt cork and the bones?"
"Oh, Miss Pryse!"
"Well, then, what?"
"How can I say it? I should like, above everything else--if only I ever
could!--to write music--to compose." He said it shyly enough, with
downcast eyes, and more of his blushes.
"And why not?"
"Well, I don't know why not--one of these days."
His tone had changed. He had tossed up his head erect. She had not
laughed at him after all!
"I should say that you would compose very well indeed," remarked Naomi,
naïvely.
"I don't know that; but some day or other I mean to try."
"Then why waste your time tuning pianos?"
"To keep myself alive meanwhile. I don't say that I shall ever do any
good as a composer. Only that's what you'd call my ambition. In any
case, I don't know enough to try yet, except to amuse myself when I'm
alone. I have no technique. I know only the rudiments of harmony. I do
get ideas; but they're no use to me. I haven't enough knowledge--of
treatment--of composition--to turn them to any account. But I shall have
some day! Miss Pryse, do you know why I'm out here? To make enough money
to go back again and study--and learn my trade--with plenty of time and
pains--which all trades require and demand. I mean all artistic trades.
And I'm not doing so very badly, seeing I've only been out three years.
I really am beginning to make a little. It was my mother's idea, my
coming out at all. I wasn't twenty-three at the time. It was a splendid
idea, like everything she does or says or thinks! How I wish you knew my
mother! She is the best and cleverest woman in all the world, though she
is so poor, and has lived in a cottage all her life. My father was a
German. He was clever, too, but he wasn't practical. So he never
succeeded. But my mother is everything! One day I shall go back to her
with my little pile. Then we shall go abroad together--perhaps to
Milan--and I shall study hard-all, and we'll soon find out whether
there's anything in me or not. If there isn't, back I come to the
colonies to tune pianos and sell music; but my mother shall come with me
next time."
"You will find that there is something in you," said Naomi. "I can see
it."
Indeed, it was not unreasonable to suppose that there was something
behind that broad, high forehead and those enthusiastic and yet
intelligent eyes. The mouth, too, was the delicate, mobile mouth of the
born artist; the nostrils were as sensitive as those of a thoroughbred
racehorse; and as he spoke the young man's face went white-hot with
sheer enthusiasm. Clearly there was reason in what Naomi thought and
said, though she knew little about music and cared less. He beamed at
her without answering, and she spoke again.
"Certainly you have ambition," she said; "and honestly, there's nothing
I admire so much in a young man. Please understand that I for one am
with you heart and soul in all you undertake or attempt. I feel quite
sure that I shall live to see you famous. Oh, isn't it splendid to be a
man and aim so high?"
"It is," he answered, simply, out of the frankness of his heart.
"Even if you never succeed, it is fine to try!"
"Thank Heaven for that. Even if you never succeed!"
"But you are going to----"
"Or going to know the reason why!"
To a sympathetic young woman who believes in him, and thus stimulates
his belief in himself; who is ready with a nod and a smile when his mind
outstrips his tongue; who understands his incoherences, and is with him
in his wildest nights; to such a listener the ordinary young man with
enthusiasm can talk by the hour together, and does. Naomi was one such;
she was eminently understanding. Engelhardt had enthusiasm. He had more
than it is good for a man to carry about in his own breast. And there is
no doubt that he would have spent the entire morning in putting his
burden, bit by bit, upon Naomi as she sat and worked and listened, had
no interruption occurred. As it was, however, she interrupted him
herself, and that in the middle of a fresh tirade, by suddenly holding
up her finger and sharply enjoining silence.
"Don't you hear voices?" she said.
He listened.
"Yes, I do."
"Do you mind seeing who it is?"
He went to the door. "There are two men hanging about the station
veranda," he said. "Stay! Now they have seen me, and are coming this
way."
Naomi said not one word, but she managed to fetch over the office-stool
in the haste with which she sprang to the ground. At a run she rounded
the counter, and reached the door just as the men came up. She pushed
Engelhardt out first, and then followed him herself, locking the door
and putting the key in her pocket before turning to the men. Last of
all, but in her most amiable manner, she asked them what they wanted.
"Travellers' rations," said one.
"Especially meat," added the other.
"Very good," said Naomi, "go to the kitchen and get the meat first. Mr.
Engelhardt, you may not know the station custom of giving rations to
travellers. We don't give meat here as a rule; so will you take these
men over to the kitchen, and tell Mrs. Potter I wish them each to have a
good helping of cold mutton? Then bring them back to the store."
"We don't seek no favors," growled the man who had spoken first.
"No?" said Naomi, with a charming smile. "But I'm sure you need some
meat. What's more, I mean you to have some!"
"Suppose we take the tea and flour first, now we are at the store!"
"Ah, I can't attend to you for a few minutes," said the girl, casually.
As she spoke she turned and left them, and Engelhardt gathered her
unconcern from the snatch of a song as she entered the main building.
The men accompanied him to the kitchen in a moody silence. As for
himself, he already felt an extraordinary aversion for them both.
And indeed their looks were against them. The one who had spoken
offensively about the meat was a stout, thick-set, middle-aged man, who
gave an impression of considerable activity in spite of his great girth.
Half his face was covered with short gray bristles, like steel spikes.
Though his hands were never out of his pockets, he carried his head like
a man of character; but the full force of a bold, insolent, vindictive
expression was split and spoilt by the most villanous of squints.
Nevertheless the force was there. It was not so conspicuous in his
companion, who was, however, almost equally untoward-looking in his own
way. He was of the medium size, all bone and gristle like a hawk, and
with no sign upon his skin of a drop of red blood underneath. The hands
were brown and furry as an ape's, with the nails all crooked and broken
by hard work. The face was as brown, and very weather-beaten, with a
pair of small black eyes twinkling out of the ruts and puckers like
pools in the sun upon a muddy road. This one rolled as he walked, and
wore brass rings in his ears; and Engelhardt, who had come out from
England in a sailing ship, saw in a moment that he was as salt as junk
all through. Decidedly he was the best of the two, though his eyes were
never still, nor the hang of his head free and honest. And on the whole
the piano-tuner was thankful when his share of the trouble with these
men was at an end, and they all came back to the store.
Rather to his surprise, Naomi was there before them, and busy weighing
out the traveller's quantum of sugar, tea, and flour, for each man. What
was really amazing, however, was the apparent miracle that had put every
trace of the silver out of sight.
"No work for us on the station?" said the stout man, before they finally
sheered off, and in a tone far from civil, to Engelhardt's thinking.
"None, I'm afraid," said Naomi, again with a smile.
"Nor yet at the shed?" inquired the other, civilly enough.
"Nor yet at the shed, I am sorry to say."
"So long, then," said the fat man, in his impudent manner. "Mayhap we
shall be coming to see you again, miss, one o' these fine days or
nights. My dear, you look out for us! You keep your spare-room in
readiness! A feather-bed for me----"
"Stow it, mate," said the other tramp, as he hitched his swag across his
shoulders. "Can't you hump your bluey and come away decent?"
"If you don't," cried Engelhardt, putting in his little word in a
gigantic voice, "it will be the worse for you!"
The big fellow laughed and swore.
"Will it, my little man?" said he. "Are _you_ going to make it the
worse? I've a blessed good mind to take and crumple you up for manure, I
have. And a blessed bad barrerful you'd make! See here, my son, I reckon
you've got one broke bone about you already; mind out that I don't leave
a few pals to keep it company. A bit more of your cheek, and I'll make
you so as your own sweetheart--a fine girl she is, as ought to be above
the likes of you; but I suppose you're better than nothing--I tell you
I'll make you so as your sweetheart----"
It was the man's own mate who put a stop to this.
"Can't you shut it and come on?" he cried, with a kind of half-amused
anger. "Wot good is this going to do either me or you, or any blessed
body else?"
"It'll do somebody some harm," returned the other, "if he opens his
mouth again. Yes, I'll clear out before I smash 'im! Good-by, my dear,
and a bigger size to you in sweethearts. So long, little man. You may
thank your broke arm that your 'ead's not broke as well!"
They were gone at last. Naomi and Engelhardt watched them out of sight
from the veranda, the latter heaving with rage and indignation. He was
not one to forget this degradation in a hurry. Naomi, on the other hand,
who had more to complain of, being a woman, was in her usual spirits in
five minutes. She took him by the arm, and told him to cheer up. He made
bitter answer that he could never forgive himself for having stood by
and heard her spoken to as she had been spoken to that morning. She
pointed to his useless arm, and laughed heartily.
"As long as they didn't see the silver," said she, "I care very little
what they said."
"But I care!"
"Then you are not to. Do you think they saw the silver?"
"No; I'm pretty sure they didn't. How quickly you must have bundled it
in again!"
"There was occasion for quickness. We must put it to rights after lunch.
Meanwhile come along and look here."
She had led the way along the veranda, and now stood fingering one of
the whitewashed posts. It was pocked about the middle with ancient
bullet-marks.
"This was the post my father stood behind. Not much of a shelter, was
it?"
Engelhardt seemed interested and yet distrait. He made no answer.
"Why don't you speak?" cried Naomi. "What has struck you?"
"Nothing much," he replied. "Only when you heard the voices, and I went
to the door, the big brute was showing the little brute this very
veranda-post!"
Naomi considered.
"There's not much in that," she said at last. "It's the custom for
travellers to wait about a veranda; and what more natural than their
spotting these holes and having a look at them? As long as they didn't
spot my silver! Do you know why I came over to the house before putting
it away?"
"No."
"To get this," said Naomi, pulling something from her pocket. She was
laughing rather shyly. It was a small revolver.