_AT FINDLAYSON'S FARM--THE GREAT KANGAROO
HUNT--A DINNER AND CONCERT._
Gentleman Craig was certainly a strange mortal; but after all he was
only the type of a class of men to be found at most of our great
universities. Admirable Crichtons in a small way, in the estimation
of their friends--bold, handsome, careless, and dashing, not to say
clever--they may go through the course with flying colours. But too
often they strike the rocks of sin and sink, going out like the
splendid meteors of a November night, or sometimes--if they continue
to float--they are sent off to Australia, with the hopes of giving
them one more chance. Alas! they seldom get farther than the cities.
It is only the very best and boldest of them that reach the Bush, and
there you may find them building fences or shearing sheep. If any
kind of labour at all is going to make men of them, it is this.
Two minutes after Craig had been talking to Archie, the sweet, clear,
ringing notes of his manly voice were awaking echoes far a-down the
dark forest.
Parrots and parrakeets, of lovely plumage, fluttered nearer, holding
low their wise, old-fashioned heads to look and listen. Lyre-birds
hopped out from under green fern-bushes, raising their tails and
glancing at their figures in the clear pool. They listened too, and
ran back to where their nests were to tell their wives men-people
were passing through the forest singing; but that they, the cock
lyre-birds, could sing infinitely better if they tried.
On and on and on went the cavalcade, till sylvan beauty itself began
to pall at last, and no one was a bit sorry when all at once the
forest ended, and they were out on a plain, out in the scrub, with,
away beyond, gently-rising hills, on which trees were scattered.
The bleating of sheep now made them forget all about the gloom of the
forest. They passed one or two rude huts, and then saw a bigger
smoke in the distance, which Bill told Archie was Findlayson's.
Findlayson came out to meet them. A Scot every inch of him, you
could tell that at a glance. A Scot from the soles of his rough
shoes to the rim of his hat; brown as to beard and hands, and with a
good-natured face the colour of a badly-burned brick.
He bade them welcome in a right hearty way, and helped "the lassie"
to dismount.
He had met "the lassie" before.
"But," he said, "I wadna hae kent ye; you were but a bit gilpie then.
Losh! but ye have grown. Your father's weel, I suppose? Ah, it'll
be a while afore anybody makes such a sudden haul at the diggin' o'
gowd as he did! But come in. It's goin' to be anither warm day, I
fear.
"Breakfast is a' ready. You'll have a thistle fu' o' whiskey first,
you men folks. Rin butt the hoose, my dear, and see my sister. Tell
her to boil the eggs, and lift the bacon and the roast ducks."
He brought out the bottle as he spoke. Both Harry and Archie tasted
to please him. But Craig went boldly into battle.
"I'm done with it, Findlayson," he said. "It has been my ruin. I'm
done. I'm a weak fool."
"But a wee drap wadna hurt you, man. Just to put the dust out o'
your wizzen."
Craig smiled.
"It is the wee draps," he replied, "that do the mischief."
"Well, I winna try to force you. Here comes the gude wife wi' the
teapot."
"Bill," he continued, "as soon as you've satisfied the cravins o'
Nature, mount the grey colt, and ride down the Creek, and tell them
the new chums and I will be wi' them in half an hour."
And in little over that specified time they had all joined the hunt.
Black folks and "orra men," as Findlayson called them, were already
detouring around a wide track of country to beat up the kangaroos.
There were nearly a score of mounted men, but only one lady besides
Etheldene, a squatter's bold sister.
The dogs were a sight to look at. They would have puzzled some
Englishmen what to make of them. Partly greyhounds, but larger,
sturdier, and stronger, as if they had received at one time a cross
of mastiff. They looked eminently fit, however, and were with
difficulty kept back. Every now and then a distant shout was heard,
and at such times the hounds seemed burning to be off.
But soon the kangaroos themselves began to appear thick and fast.
They came from one part or another in little groups, meeting and
hopping about in wonder and fright. They seemed only looking for a
means of escape; and at times, as a few rushing from one direction
met others, they appeared to consult. Many stood high up, as if on
tiptoe, gazing eagerly around, with a curious mixture of bewilderment
and fright displayed on their simple but gentle faces.
They got small time to think now, however, for men and dogs were on
them, and the flight and the murder commenced with a vengeance.
There were black fellows there, who appeared to spring suddenly from
the earth, spear-armed, to deal terrible destruction right and left
among the innocent animals. And black women too, who seemed to revel
in the bloody sight. If the whites were excited and thirsty for
carnage, those aborigines were doubly so.
Meanwhile the men had dismounted, Archie and Harry among the rest,
and were firing away as quickly as possible. There is one thing to
be said in favour of the gunners; they took good aim, and there was
little after-motion in the body of the kangaroo in which a bullet had
found a billet.
After all Archie was neither content with the sport, nor had it come
up as yet to his _beau ideal_ of adventure from all he had heard and
read of it. The scene was altogether noisy, wild, and confusing.
The blacks gloated in the bloodshed, and Archie did not love them any
the more for it. It was the first time he had seen those fellows
using their spears, and he could guess from the way they handled or
hurled them that they would be pretty dangerous enemies to meet face
to face in the plain or scrub.
"Harry," he said after a time, "I'm getting tired of all this; let us
go to our horses."
"I'm tired too. Hallo! where is the chick-a-biddy?"
"You mean Miss Winslow, Harry."
"Ay, Johnnie."
"I have not seen her for some time."
They soon found her though, near a bit of scrub, where their own
horses were tied.
She was sitting on her saddle, looking as steady and demure as an
equestrian statue. The sunshine was so blinding that they did not at
first notice her in the shade there until they were close upon her.
"What, Etheldene!" cried Archie; "we hardly expected you here."
"Where, then?"
"Following the hounds."
"What! into that mob? No, that is not what I came for."
At that moment Craig rode up.
"So glad," he said, "to find you all here. Mount, gentlemen. Are
you ready, Baby?"
"Ready, yes, an hour ago, Craig."
They met horsemen and hounds not far away, and taking a bold detour
over a rough and broken country, at the edge of a wood, the hounds
found a "forester," or old man kangaroo. The beast had a good start
if he had taken the best advantage of it; but he failed to do so. He
had hesitated several times; but the run was a fine one. A wilder,
rougher, more dangerous ride Archie had never taken.
The beast was at bay before very long, and his resistance to the
death was extraordinary.
They had many more rides before the day was over; and when they
re-assembled in farmer Findlayson's hospitable parlour, Archie was
fain for once to own himself not only tired, but "dead beat."
The dinner was what Harry called a splendid spread. Old Findlayson
had been a gardener in his younger days in England, and his wife was
a cook; and one of the results of this amalgamation was, dinners or
breakfasts either, that had already made the Scotchman famous.
Here was soup that an epicure would not have despised, fish to tempt
a dying man, besides game of different kinds, pies, and last, if not
least, steak of kangaroo.
The soup itself was made from the tail of the kangaroo, and I know
nothing more wholesome and nourishing, though some may think it a
little strong.
While the white folks were having dinner in-doors, the black fellows
were doing ample justice to theirs _al fresco_, only they had their
own cuisine and menu, of which the least said the better.
"You're sure, Mr. Craig, you winna tak' a wee drappie?"
If the honest squatter put this question once in the course of the
evening, he put it twenty times.
"No, really," said Craig at last; "I will not tak' a wee drappie.
I've sworn off; I have, really. Besides, your wife has made me some
delightful tea."
"Weel, man, tak' a wee drappie in your last cup. It'll cheer ye up."
"Take down your fiddle, Findlayson, and play a rattling strathspey or
reel, that'll cheer me up more wholesomely than any amount of 'wee
drappies.'"
"Come out o' doors then."
It was cool now out there in Findlayson's garden--it was a real
garden too. His garden and his fiddle were Findlayson's two fads;
and that he was master of both, their present surroundings of fern
and flower, and delicious scent of wattle-blossom, and the charming
strains that floated from the corner where the squatter stood were
proof enough. The fiddle in his hands talked and sang, now bold or
merrily, now in sad and wailing notes that brought tears to even
Archie's eyes. Then, at a suggestion of Craig's, Etheldene's sweet
young voice was raised in song, and this was only the beginning of
the concert. Conversation filled up the gaps, so that the evening
passed away all too soon.
Just as Findlayson had concluded that plaintive and feeling air "Auld
Robin Gray," a little black girl came stealthily, silently up to
Etheldene, and placed a little creature like a rabbit in her lap,
uttering a few words of Bush-English, which seemed to Archie's ear
utterly devoid of sense. Then the black girl ran; she went away to
her own camp to tell her people that the white folks were holding a
corroboree.
The gift was a motherless kangaroo, that at once commenced to make
itself at home by hiding its innocent head under Etheldene's arm.
The party soon after broke up for the night, and next day but one,
early in the morning, the return journey was commenced, and finished
that night; but the sun had gone down, and the moon was shining high
and full over the forest, before they once more reached the clearing.