_ROUND THE LOG-FIRE--HURRICANE BILL AND THE
TIGER-SNAKE--GENTLEMAN CRAIG'S RESOLVE._
Kangaroo driving or hunting is one of the wild sports of Australia,
though I have heard it doubted whether there was any real sport in
it. It is extremely exciting, and never much more dangerous than a
ride after the hounds at home in a rough country.
It really does seem little short of murder, however, to surround the
animals and slay them wholesale; only, be it remembered, they are
extremely hard upon the herbage. It has been said that a kangaroo
will eat as much as two sheep; whether this be true or not, these
animals must be kept down, or they will keep the squatter down.
Every other species of wild animal disappears before man, but
kangaroos appear to imagine that human beings were sent into the bush
to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, and that
both blades belong to them.
The only people from Burley New Farm who went to the Findlayson
kangaroo drive were Harry, Archie, and Etheldene, and Craig to look
after her. Mr. Winslow stopped at home with Bob, to give him advice
and suggest improvements; for he well knew his daughter would be safe
with Gentleman Craig.
It was a long ride, however, and one night was to be spent in camp;
but as there was nothing to do, and nothing in the shape of cattle or
sheep to look after, it was rather jolly than otherwise. They found
a delightful spot near a clear pool and close by the forest to make
their pitch on for the night.
Hurricane Bill was the active party on this occasion; he found wood
with the help of Harry, and enough of it to last till the morning.
The beauty, or one of the beauties, of the climate in this part of
Australia is, that with the sun the thermometer sinks, and the later
spring and even summer nights are very pleasant indeed.
When supper was finished, and tea, that safest and best of
stimulants, had been discussed, talking became general; everybody was
in good spirits in the expectation of some fun on the morrow; for a
longish ride through the depth of that gloomy forest would bring them
to the plain and to Findlayson's in time for a second breakfast.
Hurricane Bill told many a strange story of Australian life, but all
in the way of conversation; for Bill was a shy kind of man, and
wanted a good deal of drawing-out, as the dog said about the badger.
Archie gave his experiences of hunting in England, and of shooting
and fishing and country adventure generally in that far-off land, and
he had no more earnest listener than Etheldene. To her England was
the land of romance. Young though she was, she had read the most of
Walter Scott's novels, and had an idea that England and Scotland were
still peopled as we find these countries described by the great
wizard, and she did not wish to be disillusioned. The very mention
of the word "castle," or "ruin," or "coat of mail," brought fancies
and pictures into her mind that she would not have had blotted out on
any account.
Over and over again, many a day and many a time, she had made Archie
describe to her every room in the old farm; and his turret-chamber
high up above the tall-spreading elm trees, where the rooks built and
cawed in spring, and through which the wild winds of winter moaned
and soughed when the leaves had fallen, was to Etheldene a veritable
room in fairy-land.
"Oh," she said to-night, "how I should love it all! I do want to go
to England, and I'll make father take me just once before I die."
"Before ye die, miss!" said Hurricane Bill. "Why it is funny to hear
the likes o' you, with all the world before ye, talkin' about dying."
Well, by-and-by London was mentioned, and then it was Harry's turn.
He was by no means sorry to have something to say.
"Shall I describe to you, Miss Winslow," he said, "some of the wild
sights of Whitechapel?"
"Is it a dreadfully wild place, Mr. Brown?"
"It is rather; eh, Johnnie?"
"I don't know much about it, Harry."
"Well, there are slums near by there, miss, that no man with a black
coat and an umbrella dare enter in daylight owing to the wild beasts.
Then there are peelers."
"What are peelers? Monkeys?"
"Yes, miss; they are a sort of monkeys--blue monkeys--and carry
sticks same as the real African ourangoutangs do. And can't they use
them too!"
"Are they very ugly?"
"Awful, and venomous too; and at night they have one eye that shines
in the dark like a wild cat's, and you've got to stand clear when
that eye's on you."
"Well," said Etheldene, "I wouldn't like to be lost in a place like
that. I'd rather be bushed where I am. But I think, Mr. Brown, you
are laughing at me. Are there any snakes in Whitechapel?"
"No, thank goodness; no, miss. I can't stand snakes much."
"There was a pretty tiger crept past you just as I was talking
though," she said with great coolness.
Harry jumped and shook himself. Etheldene laughed.
"It is far enough away by this time," she remarked. "I saw something
ripple past you, Harry, like a whip-thong. I thought my eyes had
made it."
"You brought it along with the wood perhaps," said Craig quietly.
"'Pon my word," cried Harry, "you're a lot of Job's comforters, all
of you. D'ye know I won't sleep one blessed wink to-night. I'll
fancy every moment there is a snake in my blanket or under the
saddle."
"They won't come near you, Mr. Brown," said Craig. "They keep as far
away from Englishmen as possible."
"Not always," said Bill. "Maybe ye wouldn't believe it, but I was
bitten and well-nigh dead, and it was a tiger as done it. And if I
ain't English, then there ain't an Englishman 'twist 'ere and
Melbourne. See that, miss?" He held up a hand in the firelight as
he spoke.
"Why," said Etheldene, "you don't mean to say the snake bit off half
your little finger?"
"Not much I don't; but he bit me on the finger, miss. I was a
swagsman then, and was gathering wood, as we were to-night, when I
got nipped, and my chum tightened a morsel of string round it to keep
the poison away from the heart, then he laid the finger on a stone
and chopped it off with his spade. Fact what I'm telling you. But
the poison got in the blood somehow all the same. They half carried
me to Irish Charlie's hotel. Lucky, that wasn't far off. Then they
stuck the whiskey into me."
"Did the whiskey kill the poison?" said Archie.
"Whiskey kill the poison! Why, young sir, Charlie's whiskey would
have killed a kangaroo! But nothing warmed me that night; my blood
felt frozen. Well, sleep came at last, and, oh, the dreams! 'Twere
worse ten thousand times than being wi' Daniel in the den o' lions.
Next day nobody hardly knew me; I was blue and wrinkled. I had aged
ten years in a single night."
"I say," said Harry, "suppose we change the subject."
"And I say," said Craig, "suppose we make the beds."
He got up as he spoke, and began to busy himself in preparations for
Etheldene's couch. It was easily and simply arranged, but the
arrangement nevertheless showed considerable forethought.
He disappeared for a few minutes, and returned laden with all the
necessary paraphernalia. A seven-foot pole was fastened to a tree;
the other end supported by a forked stick, which he sharpened and
drove into the ground. Some grass was spread beneath the pole, a
blanket thrown carefully over it, the upturned saddle put down for a
pillow, and a tent formed by throwing over the pole a loose piece of
canvas that he had taken from his saddle-bow, weighted down by some
stones, and the whole was complete.
"Now, Baby," said Craig, handing Etheldene a warm rug, "will you be
pleased to retire?"
"Where is my flat candlestick?" she answered.
Gentleman Craig pointed to the Southern Cross.
"Yonder," he said. "Is it not a lovely one?"
"It puts me in mind of old, old times," said Etheldene with a sigh.
"And you're calling me 'Baby' too. Do you remember, ever so long ago
in the Bush, when I was a baby in downright earnest, how you used to
sing a lullaby to me outside my wee tent?"
"If you go to bed, and don't speak any more, I may do so again."
"Good-night then. Sound sleep to everybody. What fun!" Then Baby
disappeared.
Craig sat himself down near the tent, after replenishing the fire--he
was to keep the first watch, then Bill would come on duty--and at
once began to sing, or rather 'croon' over, an old, old song. His
voice was rich and sweet, and though he sang low it could be heard
distinctly enough by all, and it mingled almost mournfully with the
soughing of the wind through the tall trees.
"My song is rather a sorrowful ditty," he had half-whispered to
Archie before he began; "but it is poor Miss Ethie's favourite." But
long before Craig had finished no one around the log fire was awake
but himself.
He looked to his rifle and revolvers, placed them handy in case of an
attack by blacks, then once more sat down, leaning his back against a
tree and giving way to thought.
Not over pleasant thoughts were those of Gentleman Craig's, as might
have been guessed from his frequent sighs as he gazed earnestly into
the fire.
What did he see in the fire? _Tableaux_ of his past life? Perhaps
or perhaps not. At all events they could not have been very
inspiriting ones. No one could have started in life with better
prospects than he had done; but he carried with him wherever he went;
his own fearful enemy, something that would not leave him alone, but
was ever, ever urging him to drink. Even as a student he had been
what was called "a jolly fellow," and his friendship was appreciated
by scores who knew him. He loved to be considered the life and soul
of a company. It was an honour dearer to him than anything else; but
deeply, dearly had he paid for it.
By this time he might have been honoured and respected in his own
country, for he was undoubtedly clever; but he had lost himself, and
lost all that made life dear--his beautiful, queenly mother. He
would never see her more. She was dead, yet the memory of the love
she bore him was still the one, the only ray of sunshine left in his
soul.
And he had come out here to Australia determined to turn over a new
leaf. Alas! he had not done so.
"Oh, what a fool I have been!" he said in his thoughts, clenching his
fists until the nails almost cut the palms.
He started up now and went wandering away towards the trees. There
was nothing that could hurt him there. He felt powerful enough to
grapple with a dozen blacks, but none were in his thoughts; and,
indeed, none were in the forest.
He could talk aloud now, as he walked rapidly up and down past the
weird grey trunks of the gum trees.
"My foolish pride has been my curse," he said bitterly. "But should
I allow it to be so? The thing lies in a nutshell. I have never yet
had the courage to say, 'I will not touch the hateful firewater,
because I cannot control myself if I do.' If I take but one glass I
arouse within me the dormant fiend, and he takes possession of my
soul, and rules all my actions until sickness ends my carousal, and I
am left weak as a child in soul and body. If I were not too proud to
say those words to my fellow-beings, if I were not afraid of being
laughed at as a coward! Ah, that's it! It is too hard to bear!
Shall I face it? Shall I own myself a coward in this one thing? I
seem compelled to answer myself, to answer my own soul. Or is it my
dead mother's spirit speaking through my heart? Oh, if I thought so
I--I----"
Here the strong man broke down. He knelt beside a tree-trunk and
sobbed like a boy. Then he prayed; and when he got up from his knees
he was calm. He extended one hand towards the stars.
"Mother," he said, "by God's help I shall be free."
* * * * * *
When the morning broke pale and golden over the eastern hills, and
the laughing jackasses came round to smile terribly loud and terribly
chaffingly at the white men's preparation for their simple breakfast,
Craig moved about without a single trace of his last night's sorrow.
He was busy looking after the horses when Etheldene came bounding
towards him with both hands extended, so frank and free and beautiful
that as he took hold of them he could not help saying:
"You look as fresh as a fern this morning, Baby."
"Not so green, Craig. Say 'Not so green.'"
"No, not so green. But really to look at you brings a great big wave
of joy surging all over my heart. But to descend from romance to
common-sense. I hope you are hungry? I have just been seeing to
your horse. Where do you think I found him?"
"I couldn't guess."
"Why in the water down yonder. Lying down and wallowing."
"The naughty horse! Ah, here come the others! Good morning all."
"We have been bathing," said Archie. "Oh, how delicious!"
"Yes," said Harry; "Johnnie and I were bathing down under the trees,
and it really was a treat to see how quickly he came to bank when I
told him there was an alligator taking stock."
"We scared the ducks though. Pity we didn't bring our guns and bag a
few."
"I believe we'll have a right good breakfast at Findlayson's," said
Craig; "so I propose we now have a mouthful of something and start."
The gloom of that deep forest became irksome at last; though some of
its trees were wondrous to behold in their stately straightness and
immensity of size, the trunks of others were bent and crooked into
such weird forms of contortion, that they positively looked uncanny.
Referring to these, Archie remarked to Craig, who was riding by his
side:
"Are they not grotesquely beautiful?"
Craig laughed lightly.
"Their grotesqueness is apparent anyhow," he replied. "But would you
believe it, in this very forest I was a week mad?"
"Mad!"
"Yes; worse than mad--delirious. Oh, I did not run about, I was too
feeble! but a black woman or girl found me, and built a kind of bark
gunja over me, for it rained part of the time and dripped the rest.
And those trees with their bent and gnarled stems walked about me,
and gibbered and laughed, and pointed crooked fingers at me. I can
afford to smile at it now but it was very dreadful then; and the
worst of it was I had brought it all on myself."
Archie was silent.
"You know in what way?" added Craig.
"I have been told," Archie said, simply and sadly.
"For weeks, Mr. Broadbent, after I was able to walk, I remained among
the blacks doing nothing, just wandering aimlessly from place to
place; but the woods and the trees looked no longer weird and awful
to me then, for I was in my right mind. It was spring--nay, but
early summer--and I could feel and drink in all the gorgeous beauty
of foliage, of tree flowers and wild flowers, nodding palms and
feathery ferns; but, oh! I left and went south again; I met once
more the white man, and forgot all the religion of Nature in which my
soul had for a time been steeped. So that is all a kind of
confession. I feel the better for having made it. We are all poor,
weak mortals at the best; only I made a resolve last night."
"You did?"
"Yes; and I am going to keep it. I am going to have help."
"Help!"
"Yes, from Him who made those stately giants of the forest and
changed their stems to silvery white. He can change all things."
"Amen!" said Archie solemnly.