THE LAST DAY
“Now then, Harry, are you ready?”
“Coming,” said Harry’s cheerful voice. He appeared on the verandah,
endeavouring to cram a gigantic apple into his pocket.
“Norah’s,” he said, in response to Jim’s lifted eyebrows. “Don’t know
if she means to eat it in sections or not—it certainly doesn’t mean to
go into my pocket as it is.” He desisted from his efforts. “Try it in
the crown of your hat, old man.”
“Thanks—my hat’s got all it knows to hold my brains,” retorted Jim.
“You can’t take that thing. Here, Norah,” as that damsel appeared on
the step, “how do you imagine Harry’s going to cart this apple?”
“Quite simple,” said Norah airily. “Cut it in four, and we’ll each take
a bit.”
“That’s the judgment of Solomon,” said Wally, who was lying full length
on the lawn—recovering, as Jim unkindly suggested, from dinner.
“Well, come along,” Jim said impatiently—“you’re an awfully hard crowd
to get started. We want to reach the falls in fair time, to see the
sunlight on them—it’s awfully pretty. After about three or four o’clock
the trees shade the water, and it’s quite ordinary.”
“Just plain, wet water,” murmured Wally. Jim rolled him over and over
down the sloping lawn, and then fled, pursued by Wally with dishevelled
attire and much grass in his mouth. The others followed more steadily,
and all four struck across the paddock to the creek.
It was a rather hot afternoon, and they were glad to reach the shade of
the bank and to follow the cattle track that led close to the water.
Great fat bullocks lay about under the huge gum trees, scarcely raising
their eyes to glance at the children as they passed; none were eating,
all were chewing the cud in lazy contentment. They passed through a
smaller paddock where superb sheep dotted the grass—real aristocrats
these, accustomed to be handled and petted, and to live on the fat of
the land—poor grass or rough country food they had never known. Jim and
Norah visited some special favourites, and patted them. Harry and Wally
admired at a distance.
“Those some of the sheep you saved from the fire?” queried Harry.
Norah flushed.
“Never did,” she said shortly, and untruthfully. “Don’t know why you
can’t talk sense, Jim!”—at which that maligned youth laughed
excessively, until first the other boys, and then Norah, joined in,
perforce.
After again climbing over the sheep-proof fence of the smaller paddock
they came out upon a wide plain, almost treeless, save for the timber
along the creek, where their cattle track still led them. Far as they
could see no fence broke the line of yellow grass. There were groups of
cattle out on the plain. These were store bullocks, Jim explained, a
draft recently arrived from Queensland, and hardly yet acclimatised.
“It takes a good while for them to settle down,” Norah said, “and then
lots of ’em get sick—pleuro and things; and we inoculate them, and
their tails drop off, and sometimes the sick ones get bad-tempered, and
it’s quite exciting work mustering.”
“Dangerous?” asked Wally.
“Not with a pony that knows things like Bobs,” said Bobs’ mistress. “He
always keeps his weather eye open for danger.”
“Not a bad thing, as you certainly don’t,” laughed Jim.
“Well—do you?”
“Certainly I do,” said Jim firmly, whereat Norah laughed very heartily.
“When I leave school, Dad says I can go on the roads with the cattle
for one trip,” said Jim. “Be no end of fun—takes ever so long to bring
them down from Queensland, and the men have a real good time—travel
with a cook, and a covered buggy and pair to bring the tucker and tents
along.”
“What’ll you be?” asked Wally—“cook?”
“No, slushy,” said Harry.
“No, I’ll take you two chaps along in those billets,” grinned Jim.
“I don’t know who’d be cook,” said Norah solemnly; “but I don’t think
the men would be in very good condition at the end of the trip,
whichever of you it was!”
With such pleasantries they beguiled the way, until, on rounding a bend
in the track, a dull roar came plainly to their ears.
“What’s that?” asked Wally, stopping to listen.
“That’s the falls, my boy,” replied Jim. “They’re really quite
respectable falls—almost Niagarous! Come along, we’ll see them in a
couple of minutes.”
The sound of falling water became plainer and plainer as they pushed
on. At this point the track was less defined and the scrub thicker—Jim
explained that the cattle did not come here much, as there was no
drinking-place for them for a good distance below the falls. They might
almost have imagined themselves back in the bush near the Hermit’s
camp, Harry said, as they pushed their way through scrub and
undergrowth, many raspberry vines adding variety, if not charm, to the
scramble. The last part of the walk was up bill, and at length they
came out upon a clearer patch of ground.
For some time the noise of the falls had deepened, until now it was a
loud roar; but the sound had hardly prepared the boys for the sight
that met their gaze. High up were rocky cliffs, sparsely clothed with
vegetation, and through these the creek had cut its way, falling in one
sheer mass, fifty feet or more, into the bed below, hollowed out by it
during countless ages. The water curved over the top of the fall in one
exquisite wave, smooth as polished marble, but half-way down a point of
rock jutted suddenly out, and on this the waters dashed and split,
flying off from it in a cloud of spray. At the foot the cataract roared
and bubbled and seethed in one boiling mass of rapids.
But the glory of it all was the sunlight. It fell right on the mass of
descending water; and in the rays the fall glittered and flashed with
all the colours of the rainbow, and the flying spray was like powdered
jewels. It caught the drops hanging on the ferns that fringed the
water, and turned them into twinkling diamonds. The whole fall seemed
to be alive in the sunbeams’ dancing light.
“Oh-h, I say,” whispered Harry. “Fancy never showing us this before!”
He cast himself on the ground and lay, chin in hands, gazing at the
wonder before him.
“We kept it to the last,” said Norah softly. She sat down by him and
the others followed their example.
“Just think,” said Harry, “that old creek’s been doing that ever since
time began—every day the sun comes to take his share at lighting it up,
long before we were born, and ages after we shall die! Doesn’t it make
you feel small!”
Norah nodded understandingly. “I saw it once by moonlight,” she said.
“Dad and I rode here one night—full moon. Oh, it was lovely! Not like
this, of course, because there wasn’t any colour—but a beautiful white,
clean light, and the fall was like a sheet of silver.”
“Did you ever throw anything over?” asked Wally. His wonderment was
subsiding and the boy in him woke up again.
“No good,” said Jim. “You never see it again. I’ve thrown a stick in up
above, and it simply whisks over and gets sucked underneath the curtain
of water at once, and disappears altogether until it reaches the smooth
water, ever so far down.”
“Say you went over yourself?”
“Wouldn’t be much left of you,” Jim answered, with a laugh. “The bed of
the creek’s simply full of rocks—you can see a spike sticking up here
and there in the rapids. We’ve seen sheep come down in flood-time—they
get battered to bits. I don’t think I’ll try any experiments, thank
you, young Wally.”
“You always were a disobliging critter,” Wally grinned.
“Another time a canoe came over,” Jim said. “It belonged to two chaps
farther up—they’d just built it, and were out for the first time, and
got down too near the falls. They didn’t know much about managing their
craft, and when the suck of the water began to take them along they
couldn’t get out of the current. They went faster and faster,
struggling to paddle against the stream, instead of getting out at an
angle and making for the bank—which they might have done. At last they
could hear the roar of the falls quite plainly.”
“What happened to them?” asked Wally. “Did they go over?”
“Well, they reckoned it wasn’t healthy to remain in the canoe,” said
Jim. “It was simply spinning along in the current, and the falls were
almost in sight. So they dived in, on opposite sides—the blessed canoe
nearly tipped over when they stood up, and only the shock of the cross
drive kept her right. Of course the creek’s not so very wide, even
farther up beyond the falls, and the force of their spring sent them
nearly out of the current. They could both swim well, and after a
struggle they got to the banks, just in time to see the canoe whisk
over the waterfall!”
“What hard luck!”
“It was rather. They started off down-stream to find it, but for a long
way they couldn’t see a trace. Then, right in the calm water, ever so
far down, they found it—bit by bit. It was broken into so much
matchwood!”
“What did they do?” asked Wally.
“Stood and stared at it from opposite sides, like two wet images,” said
Jim, laughing. “It’s lowdown to grin, I suppose, but they must have
looked funny. Then one of them swam across and they made their way to
our place, and we fixed them up with dry things and drove them home. I
don’t think they’ve gone in for canoeing since!” finished Jim
reflectively.
“Well, I guess it would discourage them a bit,” Wally agreed. “Getting
shipwrecked’s no fun.”
“Ever tried it?”
“Once—in Albert Park Lagoon,” Wally admitted bashfully. “Some of us
went out for a sail one Saturday afternoon. We didn’t know much about
it, and I really don’t know what it was that tipped the old boat over.
I was the smallest, so naturally I wasn’t having any say in managing
her.”
“That accounts for it,” said Jim dryly.
“Didn’t mean that—goat!” said Wally. “Anyhow, I was very much
astonished to find myself suddenly kicking in the mud. Ever been in
that lake? It isn’t nice. It isn’t deep enough to drown you, but the
mud is a caution. I got it all over me—face and all!”
“You must have looked your best!” said Jim.
“I did. I managed to stand up, very much amazed to find I wasn’t
drowned. Two of the others walked out! I was too small to do more than
just manage to keep upright. The water was round my chest. I couldn’t
have walked a yard.”
“How did you manage?”
“A boat came along and picked up the survivors,” grinned Wally. “They
wouldn’t take us in. We were just caked with mud, so I don’t blame
’em—but we hung on to the stern, and they towed us to the shore. We
were quite close to land. Then they went back and brought our boat to
us. They were jolly kind chaps—didn’t seem to mind any trouble.”
“You don’t seem to have minded it, either,” said Norah.
“We were too busy laughing,” Wally said. “You have to expect these
things when you go in for a life on the ocean wave. The worst part of
it came afterwards, when we went home. That was really unpleasant. I
was staying at my aunt’s in Toorak.”
“Did you get into a row?”
“It was unpleasant,” Wally repeated. “Aunts haven’t much sympathy, you
know. They don’t like mess, and I was no end messy. We won’t talk about
it, I think, thank you.” Wally rolled over on his back, produced an
apple and bit into it solemnly.
“Let us respect his silence,” said Jim.
“You had aunts too?” queried Wally, with his mouth full.
“Not exactly aunts,” Jim said. “But we had an old Tartar of a
housekeeper once, when we were small kids. She ruled us with a rod of
iron for about six months, and Norah and I could hardly call our souls
our own. Father used to be a good deal away and Mrs. Lister could do
pretty well as she liked.”
“I did abominate that woman,” said Norah reflectively.
“I don’t wonder,” replied Jim. “You certainly were a downtrodden little
nipper as ever was. D’you remember the time we went canoeing in the
flood on your old p’rambulator?”
“Not likely to forget it.”
“What was it?” Wally asked. “Tell us, Jim.”
“Norah had a pram—like most kids,” Jim began.
“Well, I like that,” said Norah, in great indignation. “It was yours
first!”
“Never said it wasn’t,” said Jim somewhat abashed by the laughter that
ensued. “But that was ages ago. It was yours at this time, anyhow. But
only the lower storey was left—just the floor of the pram on three
wheels. Norah used to sit on this thing and push herself along with two
sticks, like rowing on dry land.”
“It was no end of fun,” said Norah. “You _could_ go!”
“You could,” grinned Jim. “I’ll never forget the day I saw you start
from the top of the hill near the house. The pram got a rate on of a
mile a minute, and the sticks weren’t needed. About half-way down it
struck a root, and turned three double somersaults in the air. I don’t
know how many Norah turned—but when Dad and I got to the spot she was
sitting on a thick mat of grass, laughing like one o’clock, and the
pram was about half a mile away on the flat with its wheels in the air!
We quite reckoned you were killed.”
“Yes, and Dad made me promise not to go down that hill again,” said
Norah ruefully. “It was a horrid nuisance!”
“Well, there was a flood,” said Jim. “Not very much of a one. We’d had
a good bit of rain, and the water-hole in the home paddock overflowed
and covered all the flat about two feet deep. At first it was a bit too
deep for Norah and her wheeled boat, but when it went down a bit she
set off voyaging. She did look a rum little figure, out in the middle
of the water, pushing herself along with her two sticks! Mrs. Lister
didn’t approve of it, but as Dad had given her leave, the housekeeper
couldn’t stop her.”
At this point Norah was heard to murmur “Cat!”
“Just so!” said Jim. “Well, you know, I used to poke fun at Norah and
this thing. But one day I had gone down to the water’s edge, and she
came up on it, poling herself through the water at a great rate, and it
occurred to me it didn’t look half bad fun. So I suggested a turn
myself.”
“You said, ‘Here, kid, let’s have that thing for a bit,’” said Norah
firmly.
“Did I?” said Jim, with meekness.
“Yes, you did. So I kindly got off.”
“Then?” asked Harry.
“He got on. I said, ‘Jim, dear, pray be careful about the holes, and
let me tell you where they are!’”
“I’m sure you did!” grinned Wally.
“And he said, ‘If a kid like you can keep out of holes, I guess I
can!’”
“I’m sure he did!” said Wally.
“Yes. So he set off. Now I had been over that flat so often in dry
weather that I knew every bit of it. But Jim didn’t. He went off as
hard as he could, and got on very well for a little bit—”
“Am I telling this yarn, or are you?” inquired Jim, laughing.
“This is the part that is best for me to tell,” said Norah solemnly.
“Then he turned suddenly, so suddenly I hadn’t time to do more than
yell a warning, which he didn’t hear—and the next minute the side
wheels of the pram went over the edge of a hole, and the thing turned
upside down upon poor old Jimmy!”
“How lovely!” said Wally, kicking with delight. “Well, and what
happened?”
“Oh, Jim can tell you now,” laughed Norah. “I wasn’t under the water!”
“I was!” said Jim. “The blessed old pram turned clean over and cast me
bodily into a hole. That was all I knew—until I tried to get out, and
found the pram had come, too, and was right on top of me—and do you
think I could move that blessed thing?”
“Well?”
“In came Norah,” said Jim. “(I’ll take it out of you now, my girl!) She
realised at once what had happened and waded in from the bank and
pulled the old pram off her poor little brother! I came up,
spluttering, to see Norah, looking very white, just preparing to dive
in after me!”
“You never saw such a drowned rat!” said Norah, taking up the tale.
“Soaked—and muddy—and very cross! And the first thing he did was to
abuse my poor old wheely-boat!”
“Well—wouldn’t you?” Jim laughed. “Had to abuse something! Anyhow, we
righted her and Norah waded farther in after the sticks, which had
floated peacefully away, and we pulled the wheely-boat ashore. Then we
roared laughing at each other. I certainly was a drowned rat, but Norah
wasn’t much better, as she’d slipped nearly into the hole herself, in
pulling the pram off me. But when we’d laughed, the first thought
was—‘How are we going to dodge Mrs. Lister!’ It was a nasty problem!”
“What did you do?”
“Well, after consultation we got up near the house, planting the pram
in some trees. We dodged through the shrubbery until we reached that
old summer-house, and there I left Norah and scooted over to the
stables, and borrowed an overcoat belonging to a boy we had working and
a pair of his boots. Dad was away, or I might have gone straight to
him. I put on the borrowed things over my wet togs (and very nice I
looked!) and trotted off to the side of the house. No one seemed about,
so I slipped into my room through the window and then into Norah’s, and
got a bundle of clothes, and back I scooted to the summer-house, left
Norah’s things there, and found a dressing-room for myself among some
shrubs close by.
“Well, do you know, that old cat, Mrs. Lister, had seen us all the
time? She’d actually spotted us coming up the paddock, dripping, and
had deliberately planted herself to see what we’d do. She knew all
about my expedition after clothes; then she followed us to the
shrubbery, and descended upon us like an avalanche, just as we got
half-dressed!”
“‘May I ask what you naughty little children are doing?’ she said.
“Well, you know, that put my back up a bit—’cause I was nearly twelve,
and Dad didn’t make a little kid of me. However, I tried to keep civil,
and tell her what had happened; but she told me to hold my tongue. She
grabbed Norah by the shoulder, and called her all the names under the
sun, and shook her. Then she said, ‘You’ll come to bed at once, miss!’
and caught hold of her wrist to drag her in.
“Now Norah had sprained her wrist not long before, and she had to be a
bit careful of it. We all knew that. She didn’t cry out when Mrs.
Lister jerked her wrist, but I saw her turn white, and knew it was the
bad one.”
“So he chucked himself on top of old Mrs. Lister, and pounded her as
hard as he could,” put in Norah, “and she was so astonished she let me
go. She turned her attention to Jim then, and gave him a terrible whack
over the head that sent him flying. And just then we heard a voice that
was so angry we hardly recognised it for Dad’s, saying—
“‘What is this all about?’”
“My word, we were glad to see Dad!” said Jim. “He came over and put his
arm round Norah—poor little kid. Mrs. Lister had screwed her wrist till
it was worse than ever it had been, and she was as white as a sheet.
Dad helped her on with her clothes. All the time Mrs. Lister was
pouring out a flood of eloquence against us, and was nearly black in
the face with rage. Dad took no notice until Norah was dressed. Then he
said, ‘Come to me in the study in twenty minutes,’ and he picked Norah
up and carried her inside, where he dosed her, and fixed up her wrist.
I put on my clothes and followed them.
“Norah and I never said anything until Mrs. Lister had told her story,
which was a fine production, little truth, and three parts awful crams.
Then Dad asked for our side, and we just told him. He knew we never
told lies, and he believed us, and we told him some other things Mrs.
Lister used to do to us in the way of bullying and spite. I don’t know
that Dad needed them, because Norah’s wrist spoke louder than fifty
tales, and he didn’t need any more evidence, though after all, she
might have grabbed the bad wrist by mistake, and she had done far worse
things on purpose. But the end of it was, Mrs. Lister departed that
night, and Norah and I danced a polka in the hall when we heard the
buggy drive off.”
“That being the case,” said Norah gravely, “we’ll all have an apple.”
The apples were produced and discussed, and then it was time to think
of home, for the sun had long since left the glistening surface of the
falls. So they gathered themselves up, and reluctantly enough left the
beautiful scene behind them, with many a backward look.
The way home was rather silent. The shadow of the boys’ departure was
over them all, and Norah especially felt the weight of approaching
loneliness. With Dad at home it would have been easier to let the boys
go, but the prospect of several days by herself, with only the servants
for company, was not a very comforting one. Norah wished dismally that
she had been born a boy, with the prospect of a journey, and mates, and
school, and “no end of larks.” Then she thought of Dad, and though
still dismal, unwished the wish, and was content to remain a girl.
There was a little excitement on the homeward trip over a snake, which
tried to slip away unseen through the grass, and when it found itself
surrounded by enemies, coiled itself round Harry’s leg, a proceeding
very painful to that youth, who nevertheless stood like a statue while
Jim dodged about for a chance to strike at the wildly waving head. He
got it at last, and while the reptile writhed in very natural
annoyance, Harry managed to get free, and soon put a respectful
distance between himself and his too-affectionate acquaintance. Jim
finished up the snake, and they resumed the track, keeping a careful
look-out, and imagining another in every rustle.
“Well done, old Harry!” said Wally. “Stood like a statue, you did!”
“Thanks!” said Harry. “Jim’s the chap to say ‘Well done’ to, I think.”
“Not me,” said Jim. “Easy enough to try to kill the brute. I’d rather
do that than feel him round my leg, where I couldn’t get at him.”
“Well, I think I would, too,” Harry said, laughing. “I never felt such
a desire to stampede in my life.”
“It was beastly,” affirmed Norah. She was a little pale. “It seemed
about an hour before he poked his horrid head out and let Jim get a
whack at it. But you didn’t lose much time, then, Jimmy!”
“Could he have bitten through the leg of your pants?” queried Wally,
with interest.
“He couldn’t have sent all the venom through, I think,” Jim replied.
“But enough would have gone to make a very sick little Harry.”
“It’d be an interesting experiment, no doubt,” said Harry. “But, if you
don’t mind, I’ll leave it for someone else to try. I’d recommend a
wooden-legged man as the experimenter. He’d feel much more at his ease
while the snake was trying how much venom he could get through a pant
leg!”