THE JOURNEY NORTH.
After all, they did not go north with the Warners. Mrs. Lester's
housewifely soul realised that am woman who had been away for six weeks
from a home principally staffed with black servants would prefer to be
without guests for at least a few days after her return, and
accordingly it was arranged that they should follow Mr. Warner's party
within the week.
The plan suited the Lesters very well. They were, as Dick's mother
said, in a state of absolute content at being together again. It was
delightful enough to explore Perth, to go yachting on the Swan with a
friend of Mr. Warner's who had a beautiful little cutter; to take a
motor-boat for the day, exploring up the river, or to go out into the
country in a car. Wherever they went they only seemed to want to talk.
There was so much to tell and to hear; so many details of the long
separation to remember, to discuss, to laugh over. Dick's memory of
that first happy week was that they seemed to have laughed all the time.
The Warners left in a huge motor, heaped confusedly with luggage and
passengers, the twinses occupying precarious positions whenever they
could escape from their mother's anxious eye.
"See you next week!" shouted Mr. Warner.
"Be sure you bring some rough clothes!" was Mrs. Warner's farewell, as
she clutched at a twin who threatened to dive over the wheel. "Thick
boots, mind!"
"Mind you come, old Dick!" This from Bobby.
Only Merle said nothing. She sat beside her father, looking stiffly
ahead, as the car slowly slid away from the little group on the hotel
steps.
"I don't see why they want to come," she had said to her father.
"Why not?"
"Oh, I don't know. I hate visitors."
"I suppose you'll get sense some day," was all Mr. Warner's rejoinder.
He did not know that the curt remark hit her more sharply than a whole
volume of remonstrance.
Merle was the one fly in the ointment in Dick's cheerful anticipations
of his visit to the Warners' station. On the _Moondarra_ and in the
hotel it had been easy enough to avoid being much with her, since she
so clearly showed that she did not desire his company; but in her own
home it would be different. They were too near in age, and too similar
in tastes, not to be thrown together. That in itself was painful
enough, since girls, to Dick, were rather boring creatures, full of
queer whims and notions--not plain, straightforward people like Teddy
Raine and Bottles and Nugent. But a girl who would not even take the
trouble to be civil--that, in Dick's language, was "over the odds." He
hoped that her governess would make regular demands upon her time, and
grinned to think what would have been Merle's opinion of him, had she
guessed at that particular hope.
However, life was too joyful at the moment to allow him to worry over
Merle's whims. He began each day with a walk before breakfast with his
father; long, brisk walks outside Perth, and long talks that bridged
the year of silence that lay behind them. They swung along together,
Dick rejoicing that he could now keep in step with his father--a year
ago he had to jog if Mr. Lester lengthened his stride; and the father
noting the development of his boy's mind as well as of his body, and
meeting his questions and his crudely expressed views with a ready
sympathy that knitted them more closely together than anything else
could have done.
"He's only a baby yet, of course," John Lester said to his wife. "His
mind is clean and open and honest; just a child's mind still. But his
body--well, he's going to be something of a man, I believe."
"He is, I think," agreed Dick's mother. "And so good looking, John!"
"Oh, that!" He laughed down at her. "You women only think about
handsome faces!"
"Indeed, I don't," Mrs. Lester defended herself. "I've been just as
keen about his physical training as you have. I wanted him to be
strong first of all. But he might have been strong and ugly--and he
isn't. And you're just as proud of it as I am!"
"Well--perhaps." He smiled down at her. "But physique comes first;
and he certainly has that. His muscles are extraordinarily good for
such a kid."
"Fresh air and cold water," said Mrs. Lester solemnly. "That has been
Dick's treatment since he was a baby, and it certainly has paid. He
hardly knows what medicine is, and he looks the very picture of
strength and fitness."
"Thank God!" said her husband hastily.
"Yes, thank God," she agreed. "Why do you say it in that way, John?"
"Oh, I don't know." He gave a short, half-embarrassed laugh. "They
say in Ireland that if you don't add 'Thank God' after you praise
anyone it brings bad luck. The peasantry there never omit it; you'll
hear, ''Tis a fine child, thank God!' or 'She have lovely eyes, thank
God!'--and you'll worry a peasant woman badly if you admire her baby
without giving God the credit. I got into the way of it, I suppose."
"Well, it's a pretty good habit to cultivate," said his wife
thoughtfully. "Look at Dick now!"
They had motored far out into the country, and had camped in the bush
for lunch; after which Dick had stripped to his shirt and
knickerbockers, and had begun to climb trees. Nine months of hard
training in the gymnasium at school had put a finish on lifelong
practice, a steady eye and a cool head. Dick had always loved
climbing--before he had discarded frocks for knickerbockers he had been
found by his horrified nurse some distance up a pepper tree. Now he
was almost like a monkey in the swift agility of his movements. As his
father and mother watched him, he swung himself cleanly across a wide
gap between two trees; caught a bough with one hand, and came dropping
down from branch to branch until he reached one about ten feet from the
ground--a smooth, straight limb, that tempted him with its likeness to
a horizontal bar. He swung head downwards, hanging by his knees, and
then circled round and round with such swiftness that the slender bough
bent and quivered. Finally, he turned a quick somersault in the air
and came down on the grass, landing lightly on his feet.
"Good man!" said his father approvingly. "It's a pity that the
gentleman who derived us all from tree-apes couldn't see you. You'd
have been great support to his theory."
Dick grinned.
"Can't climb decently in boots," he said, casting a disparaging glance
at his feet. "But it's jolly to get up a tree again."
"No trees at school?"
"Oh, some," admitted Dick. "We're not supposed to climb them, of
course, but----" He grinned again. "But, anyhow, they're not like
good bush trees, like these. I don't suppose anyone ever climbed here
much, but the trees at school--well, they're just polished with
climbing!"
"Being a forbidden luxury," said his father, laughing. "Well, I think
I was one of the early polishers of those same trees, so I can't say
anything to you."
"But you never do jaw a chap, father," said Dick comfortably.
That was one of the points that made their early morning walks so
satisfactory--that there was never any "jawing." John Lester
encouraged his boy to tell him each little detail of his life at
school. He learned all about his friends--Teddy Raine, the captain of
the junior eleven, who was easily the leader of the lower school;
Bottles, fat and cheery and honest, whom everybody liked; Nugent, the
homeless boy, with a father in India and no mother; these were the
chief, but there were a host of others. Mr. Lester knew them all
fairly well now. He learned about their scrapes and their pranks,
their midnight suppers, half-holiday escapades, and--not in such
details--their schoolroom life. Dick was a little shy of talking at
first; but, finding only ready sympathy and interest, his tongue became
loosened, and he chattered away as freely as he would to the
irrepressible Teddy Raine. Mr. Lester never preached. His eye
generally held a twinkle; his sharpest criticism was, once or twice, "I
don't know that that's altogether the thing." There the matter ended,
for him; but Dick made up his mind that the incidents in question
should not happen again.
They would come back to breakfast; glowing and hungry, and make a raid
on Mrs. Lester in her room, declaring that she was the laziest person
alive, and did not know how much she missed; at which Mrs. Lester
smiled quietly, and would go down to breakfast arm in arm between them.
Not for worlds would she have made a third--even a beloved third--in
those walks. Dick had lived in her pocket long enough; it was his turn
for his father now, and she rejoiced in each day's new evidence of how
completely they were becoming mates.
They visited the great limestone caverns at Yallingup, making a three
days' expedition of it, and coming back to Perth full of the weird
charm of the glistening underground world. At the hotel they found a
two-days' old telegram from Mr. Warner.
"Can you start Thursday obliged to take car Westown with sick
governess like meet you same trip don't worry if inconvenient can
arrange anything suit you had good trip up."
Mr. Lester glanced at the date.
"H'm; and Thursday is to-morrow. The train starts at five o'clock."
"In the morning?" gasped Mrs. Lester.
"Oh, no--don't be anxious!" He laughed at her. "Five in the
afternoon; and we get to Kalgoorlie at ten next morning."
"And after that?"
"After that a little train that wobbles north to Westown at its own
sweet will, I suppose," said her husband. "I don't know anything about
it; but it's believed to put us off at Westown some time in the
afternoon, and Warner will be there with his car. We must go, if
possible. I don't want to give him the long journey in from Narrung
Downs again."
"Oh, we couldn't do that, of course," said Mrs. Lester hastily. "And
there is no reason why we should not get away to-morrow."
"No more shopping?" asked he, smiling down at her.
"Of course, there's always shopping!" returned his wife with dignity.
"But not more than we can get through to-morrow. Oh, and the packing I
must do! Don't let me think of that to-night, John--take us to the
theatre instead!"
"Indeed, I think it would be wiser if you went early to bed and had a
good night's sleep," he said. "Was there ever such an irresponsible
young person!"
"Don't want to be responsible!" said she. "I'm having a holiday. If
you telephoned for seats, now----"
"You know you'll have to, father!" said Dick, capering. "Better give
in nicely."
"This is what it is to be meek--you get systematically bullied!" said
his father, with mock despair. "All right; I suppose I shan't get any
peace if I don't." He departed whistling.
"Mother, it is nice of you not to grow up!" said Dick solemnly.
They followed their last gay night in Perth by a busy day; there was a
rushed visit to shops, collecting the last odds and ends of country kit
that had seemed so unnecessary when packing in Melbourne--riding gear,
chiefly, with thick boots and the cooler clothes that might be found
necessary up North. Then came packing, with much sorting out of
luggage; most of their baggage was to be left at the hotel until their
return. They were glad to get into their train at five o'clock, and
its jolting failed to keep them awake during the long night while it
rattled into the north-east towards Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie.
They breakfasted on the train, arriving at Kalgoorlie soon afterwards;
and after a wait too short to allow them to do more than peep at the
busy gold-fields capital they were off again, travelling slowly into
the north. Soon the mullock heaps and poppet heads of the mines
thinned out and they found themselves running through country covered
with sparse scrub, with mulga and saltbush mingling with stunted gum
trees and she oaks; a dreary enough land, dry and desolate, where many
a gold seeker had perished from thirst in the days when every yard of
earth was turned up in the search for nuggets. Now and then the train
pulled up at a little township, built of weatherboard and corrugated
iron, where the people crowded the narrow gravelled platform to look at
the train and peer curiously in at the passengers. It seemed to Dick
that as they travelled farther and farther into the country these bush
folk grew more and more lean and bronzed; tall men, in blue shirts and
moleskin trousers, wrinkled about the eyes, as men grow early when they
live in wild spaces under a hot sun; women, in faded blouses and skimpy
skirts, with print sun-bonnets or men's felt half pulled down over
their eyes. Such lonely women! They stood in the doorways of little
isolated homesteads watching the train wistfully as it roared past
them; generally with a baby tucked into one arm, and three or four
older children playing near them, or perched on the railway fence,
shouting greetings to the train. Indeed, all through that lonely
country, as the train sped north, came appealing shouts--from the
isolated cottages, from children evidently sent a mile or two to be at
the line when the train was due, or rising almost from under the
wheels, from navvies working on the line. Just one word--"Papers!
Papers!"--and people would jump up, and sleeping travellers rouse
themselves, to hurl newspapers and magazines from the windows. Dick
used to lean out to watch them flutter down like great white birds, to
be pounced on by eager hands before they touched the ground. It did
not much matter who got them, for they were sure to be passed round and
read by every family and every camp within five miles.
Here and there, as they rattled over stony ridges or wide sandy plains,
were mines; the big mullock heaps and towering poppet heads seemed to
dot all the country. Some were working still; others derelict; with
hardy bushes trying to find a footing in every corner where men had
toiled in the feverish hunt for gold. Sometimes they saw long strings
of camels slouching along in their sulky fashion, laden with wood for
the mines; there were Afghans in charge of some of the teams, tall,
dirty-looking natives, whose dark faces, under grimy turbans, scarcely
turned to glance at the train. Donkey teams came into view, hauling
waggons along the sandy tracks; it was curious to watch them sneaking
in and out of the sparse mulga scrub.
The carriage grew hotter and hotter, and ever more full of dust. There
was a halt for a meal at a wayside station, where the food in the
refreshment room also seemed to have acquired a liberal coating of
dust, and the tea was stewed to an inky blackness. Mrs. Lester fled
from the meal, and lunched frugally on bananas, which, she remarked,
were at least dust-proof. Then they rattled on into country that
became wilder and yet more sandy, until, about the middle of the
afternoon, they found themselves standing on a rough gravel platform,
surrounded by their luggage, while the train vanished in a belt of
kurrajong trees. A motor hooted outside, and in a moment Mr. Warner
appeared, looking huger than ever in an enormous wide-awake hat, and
very red-faced and hurried.
"It's splendid to see you all--welcome to Out Back!" He shook hands
vigorously all round. "Had a good trip? But I needn't ask. I've done
it too often myself. I was nearly late for you. A dog insisted on
trying to commit suicide under the car as I was coming from the hotel,
and I had no end of trouble getting him out. Wasn't hurt, only pretty
badly frightened. I don't think he'll choose a motor next time he
feels tired of life. Come along--we'll get your stuff loaded up, and
then have a cup of tea at the hotel before we start. I told them to
have hot scones ready!"
"Hot scones!" said Mrs. Lester faintly. "It sounds too good to be
true!"
"I know that refreshment room on the way up," said Mr. Warner,
laughing. "You all look starved; however, we'll have you home in time
for dinner. Getting off here saves you two hours in the train. Of
course, it's a longer run in the car, but not so wearying."
"And the governess?" asked Mrs. Lester.
"Oh, poor soul, she's pretty bad. The wife of the doctor here is her
sister, and nothing would do but she must come to her. I didn't think
she was fit for the journey myself. However, she wept until we had to
let her go. So Merle's at a loose end again, as far as education is
concerned. I've no doubt she'll find occupation enough." He was
scientifically fitting luggage on the steps of the car, and lashing it
firmly. "You people are wonders; I thought you'd have twice as much
baggage as this. Sure you haven't lost a trunk or two?"
"Why, we were afraid you would have heart failure when you saw the
amount we were bringing," said Mr. Lester, laughing.
"Bless you, this is nothing; my wife's sister came up last year with
three times as much for her lone self," Mr. Warner answered. "We get
accustomed to carrying luggage on the car in a way that would horrify a
Melbourne or Sydney motorist. I believe I'll come home some day with a
few trunks perched on the bonnet. There, that's all right." He stood
back, opening the door. "Now, Mrs. Lester, I'm sure you're needing
those hot scones!"
The scones proved all that hungry travellers could wish, and twice they
exhausted the hotel's largest teapot. Mr. Warner hurried them over the
meal, and soon they were in the car again, and the iron roofs of the
little township a grey blur in the distance. The road was good firm
sand, with a few softer patches where bullock teams had cut up the
surface; but on the whole they made good time over it, slipping through
the scented scrub that bordered the track. Wild flowers, unfamiliar
and beautiful, gleamed among the trees in every clear patch; wild arums
and asters and clumps of dwarf yellow cassia. They passed a wide
swamp, where red legs and sand pipers stalked among the sparse rushes
on the edge, and further out pelicans swam lazily, with a host of
lesser fowl.
"Great shooting here," said Mr. Warner--"or would be if it were not for
the blacks. Any amount of teal and musk duck and wild geese. But the
blacks fairly live in the swamp when the birds are here."
"Do they shoot them?" Dick asked.
"Oh, no--they're not allowed guns. But they're very useful with spears
and throwing sticks; our blacks are fairly uncivilised, you see. Later
on I suppose they'll lose all their old darts and become utterly
useless; that's what has happened in the eastern states."
"Do you find them faithful?" asked Mr. Lester.
"Well--sometimes. You never can tell. A woman or a boy may have every
appearance of being thoroughly settled down, and of responding to
training, and then some fine morning you find one 'gone bush'--back to
the tribe. Possibly you never see that one again; possibly he or she
will turn up six months later, quite prepared to go back to work. On
the other hand, we have a few who have been for years with us.
Children are their best tie; if they once become attached to your
youngsters they're much less likely to go."
He talked on, telling stories of the blacks and of the wild life of the
early days, leaning back in his seat with one careless hand on the
wheel, while the car seemed to find its own way along the noiseless
sandy track. The scattered farms that spread out a few miles from the
township gave place to wide plains, partly covered with scrub, where
only an occasional house was to be seen; and the road grew more and
more lonely. At first they had met buggies, bullock wagons, and one or
two other motors, but after a time they seemed to be the only people on
the plain, and it was almost a relief when they met a "sun-downer"
slouching along under a heavy swag, his felt hat pulled low over his
eyes, and a battered quart pot in his hand. The sun sank lower and
lower, and a keen breeze made the travellers glad to put on heavier
coats. It was almost dusk when they emerged from a dense belt of gum
trees and saw ahead of them a fence, stretching apparently for miles
east and west, and a gate that stood open, held by a solemn black boy.
Mr. Warner nodded to him, and they swept through. The track curved
round a plantation of pines, and they saw a homestead so large that it
looked like a village. White-painted roofs gleamed among the trees,
and scattered buildings fringed the main block until there seemed no
end to them, while the tall, spidery outlines of windmills towered
above the green. The deep emerald of a lucerne paddock stretched down
to a little creek.
"I didn't know you could grow lucerne here," remarked Mr. Lester. "In
fact, I had a vague idea that nothing but sand and mulga really
flourished in the West. But your place doesn't suggest that!"
"You can do a heap with irrigation," his host answered. "Between the
windmills and a hydraulic ram down at the creek I can get as much water
as I want; and with water you can grow anything in this climate. I'll
show you all the place to-morrow."
He gave a long coo-ee, bringing the car more slowly round a fence that
bordered a great garden. There seemed a dense crowd waiting for them:
Mrs. Warner first, her kind face alight with welcome. Merle beside
her; close at hand the twinses, struggling against control; and then a
few white faces amidst a mass of black ones, all striving to have a
good look at the new arrivals. The car came to a standstill, and
suddenly Bobby hurtled through the throng and flung himself at the step.
"Hallo, Dick! Oh, I's so glad you came!"
Willing hands, black and white, seized upon their luggage. They
drifted in through the gate, and found themselves on a very wide
verandah, which completely surrounded a long, one-storied house, almost
hidden by creepers. The architecture of that house was simple. It had
begun by being two rooms, opening out of each other; than a room had
been added at each end; then more, as need arose; until at last there
were fourteen rooms, all in a long row, and all opening upon the
verandahs. Kitchen, storerooms and other offices had been built across
a little space from the main building, and at a later date a wing had
been thrown out connecting the two; and now the space was a great sandy
courtyard, with shrubs and palms growing in enormous tubs, and seats
scattered here and there. The living rooms--dining and drawing rooms,
Mrs. Warner's workroom, and a big man's "den" were in this new wing;
the long side of the house was principally given up to bedrooms. Mrs.
Warner led them inside. Two strapping black girls were putting trunks
into a big airy bedroom.
"This is your room, with the dressing-room opening from it. Dick's is
next door," she told them. "Bobby, you take Dick to his room."
Bobby tugged at his friend's hand.
The room into which he ushered Dick was long and bright, with two
little beds in opposite corners, and windows at each side.
"Muvver said I wasn't to ask you somefing," Bobby began and hesitated.
"How's that?" asked Dick.
The small boy cast an appealing look at the second bed.
"Vat's not your bed," he said. "The uvver one has ve sheets and fings.
Nobody sleeps in vat bed. 'Course, I could easy bwing up my sheets
from my howwid silly bed in the nursewy, if----"
He stopped, round-eyed. "O-o-oh, I nearly wented and asked you, after
all!"
Dick laughed.
"I believe you nearly did," he said. "Better not, or mother might be
cross with you. I say, I'll ask you something instead. How'd you like
to come and sleep in this spare bed? I'd rather like a mate!"
Bobby was out like a flash.
"Muvver! Muvver! Dick wants me to sleep in his room."
Came Mrs. Warner's voice reproachfully:
"Oh, Bobby, you asked!"
"No, I didn't--I only nearly did. True, mother!"
"He really didn't, Mrs. Warner. I asked him," said Dick, appearing.
"And do you really want him, Dick?"
"Oh, rather!"
But Bobby waited for no more. He fled down the verandah like a rabbit
to its burrow, his voice coming faintly as he ran:
"I'm goin' to ask Nanna--for--my--sheets--an'--fings!"