BOB.
Eustace was right: their father would not have gone to Brisbane had
it not been necessary; but this was not because Mr. Orban was
troubled by any fears for the safety of his family. He had lived so
long in North Queensland that he was used to the solitude, and
thought nothing of the dangers surrounding them. It distressed him
to have to go away simply because he knew that his wife would be
terribly nervous without him. Fifteen years in the colony had not
accustomed her to the loneliness of their position.
Besides the two engineers, and the field manager, Mr. Ashton, who
all lived at the foot of the hill, the Orbans had no white
neighbours nearer than five miles off. The field hands were
coloured men of some five or six different races, chiefly Chinese
or Malays--the good-for-nothing riff-raff of their own countries
come to seek a living elsewhere.
There was no society, no constant dropping in of friends, nothing
to relieve the monotony of daily life. But none of this did Mrs.
Orban mind; she was always busy and content by day. It was only of
the night-time she was afraid, when strange-voiced creatures were
never silent an hour, weird cries from the scrub pierced the air,
and there arose from the plantation below wild sounds, sometimes of
revelry over a feast, the beating of tom-toms, and wailing of
voices as the natives conducted their heathen worship, or indulged
in noisy quarrels likely to end in bloodshed between antagonistic
tribes.
But though for some reasons the coolies were not pleasant
neighbours, the house on the hill had nothing to fear from them.
Their worst feature was their utter uselessness in any real danger,
coming from quite another quarter. Though they might serve him
solely for their own benefit, and were for the most part thieves
and rogues, the coolies had no desire to harm the white man
personally.
But wandering stealthily through the woods, homeless and lawless,
is a race that hates the white man--the aborigines of Australia.
Civilization has driven them farther and farther north, for the
Australian black-fellows cannot be tamed and trained--their
nature is too wild and fierce to be kept within bounds except
by fear and crushing. They are treacherous and savage, and most
repulsive in appearance. Though spoken of as black, they are
really chocolate-brown, but so covered with hair as to be very
dusky.
Being very cunning in their movements, it is always difficult to
know where they are, and there are often such long lapses between
the times they are heard of, that most people forget their
existence as a matter of any importance. But Mr. Orban knew that
his wife was haunted by a very constant horror of them--a dread
lest one night the blacks should make a raid upon their plantation,
as they had been known to do upon other white men's dwellings.
What neither Mr. nor Mrs. Orban realized was how much Eustace and
Nesta knew of certain terrible events happening from time to time
in just such isolated homes as their own. It was from the two young
white maidservants the children heard tales they listened to with a
kind of awful enjoyment by day, but which were remembered at night
with a shudder. The creaking of the wooden house in which they
lived as the boards contracted after the tropical heat of day, and
the weird sounds rising from the plantation below, held a hundred
terrors to be ashamed of in the morning.
Eustace and Nesta never spoke of these night panics to any one,
least of all to each other--they seemed so silly when broad
daylight proved there had been absolutely nothing to be cowardly
about.
By some unspoken rule Peter was never allowed to hear these
stories. He was always considered so very much younger than Eustace
and Nesta that even the servants had the sense not to frighten him.
So Peter's spirits were not damped by the thought of their father's
departure, and he knew nothing of the queer little tiff that had
taken place between Eustace and Nesta.
It is very odd how people can quarrel over a matter upon which they
are perfectly agreed; but they frequently do, especially when it
has anything to do with fear.
Nesta went to bed that night still in the sulks, with an air of
"You'll be sorry some day" about her every attitude. Eustace seemed
inseparable from his book, and disinclined to talk. He went heavily
to bed, more troubled than ever because, though his mother was
unusually merry, making much of all the presents from England, and
showing great interest in them, he saw she was very white, and
there was still a strange look about her eyes. He suspected her
gaiety to be only put on for their amusement, and he felt sorrier
and sorrier for her.
But a good night's rest did wonders for both children, and they
came in to breakfast in better humours. Nesta forgot to be tragic
when she heard her father and mother discussing what material
should be brought from Brisbane for the girls' new dresses. New
clothes were a rare event for the Orban children, and always caused
a good deal of excitement.
Eustace had been up early, and everything looked so calm, peaceful,
and ordinary about the place that he was inclined to be more than
half ashamed of his outburst the day before. "After all," he
argued, "nothing ever has happened to us--why should it now? The
black-fellows have never come this way. Why should they, just
because father is away? How could they get to know of his going?
Besides, the plantation isn't so awfully far off."
He had stood on the veranda and stared down at the sugar mill lying
at the foot of the hill, where Robertson and Farley lived; at Mr.
Ashton's house, and all the familiar, odd-shaped huts in which the
coolies lived. It was all just as he had seen it every day of his
life, and nothing had ever happened--why, indeed, should it now?
Mrs. Orban's interest in the new dresses was certainly not
feigned.
"Now, Jack," she was saying as Eustace entered the room,
"don't--don't go and ask for dusters. It is that pretty pink and
blue check zephyr I want--pink for Becky, and blue for Nesta."
"Well, dear, you must confess it is just like duster stuff--now,
isn't it?" demanded Mr. Orban with a laugh.
"O daddy, not a bit!" Nesta exclaimed. "What a horrid thought!"
"Some of mother's dusters are very pretty, young woman," said her
father. "I wouldn't mind having shirts made of them myself."
"I should object very much," Mrs. Orban said with a laugh; "you
would look like a coolie. But let us talk sense again."
Talking sense meant talking business, which on this occasion was
the making out of a list of really rather dull things wanted in the
house.
Daily life begins early on a sugar plantation. It was now only
half-past six, and the house had been astir since half-past four;
the children playing, Mrs. Orban working about the house, and Mr.
Orban away down on the plantation. The comparative cool of the
morning was the best time for any sort of activity. Later, as the
fierce December sun rose higher, even the children became listless
and disinclined to race about.
After breakfast, when Mr. Orban went back to work, Mrs. Orban gave
the children lessons--the only teaching they had ever had. At
eleven Mr. Orban returned for early dinner.
To our English ideas the routine seems strange; but the Orban
children were used to it, and had no realization of how different
was life in their parents' old home. It did not seem at all funny
even to the twins to have tea at five, and go to bed at half-past
six or seven. They were generally very ready for sleep by then,
after their long, exhausting day.
"I say, father," Eustace said suddenly, after a long meditation
while business was being discussed, "I can stay up to dinner with
mother when you are away--can't I? It will be awfully dull for her
if I don't."
"And me too," said Nesta, who never allowed it to be forgotten
that, being the same age as Eustace, she claimed the same
privileges.
"Rot," said Eustace; "you're only a girl."
"And me too," chimed in Peter.
"Oh, you silly baby," said Eustace impatiently, "what good would
you do?"
Peter's delicate face became scarlet.
"I could play games with mother quite as well as you," he said with
an angry frown.
"Mother doesn't want amusing like that to keep her from being
dull," Eustace declared. "She wants somebody who can talk sensibly
like father, and be grown up."
Nesta gave a little derisive laugh.
"Like father!" she repeated; "that is funny. I suppose you think
you could be just like him. Why don't you ask him to let you smoke
one of his pipes at once?"
"Don't be silly, Nesta," Eustace retorted.
"It's you who are silly," Nesta said, "thinking only boys can be
grown up or of any use."
"When you have quite done snapping each other's heads off,"
interposed their father in his deep, quiet voice, "perhaps you will
allow me to speak. As a matter of fact, the mother thinks of going
to bed with the cocks and hens herself."
"To bed with the cocks and hens!" repeated Peter, with an
expression of blank surprise in his blue eyes.
Now the cocks and hens many of them roosted under the house, which
was built on pillars, and set some distance above the ground. It
was not an attractive spot at any time, for here there also lived
many strange creatures, snakes amongst them.
"Well, not exactly in the henhouse, Peter," said his father, with a
twinkle in his eyes. "I dare say she will sleep as usual in her own
bedroom. I was referring more to the hour at which she says she
means to go to bed--not very long after you."
"Still you will have dinner--won't you, mummie?" Eustace said.
"Certainly," Mrs. Orban answered with a smile; "and I don't think
it would be a bad plan for you and Nesta to stay up for it, if you
will promise not to get up quite so early in the morning. We will
have dinner directly after Peter and Becky are in bed; but we won't
sit up late ourselves, any of us."
Mrs. Orban certainly showed no signs of nervousness to-day; the
strained expression had left her eyes; she was laughing and talking
quite naturally.
"I suppose," thought Eustace, "she was partly upset by the parcel
from England."
"Father," Nesta exclaimed, "I'm certain I hear a horse coming up
the hill. Who can it be at this time of day?"
"Don't know, I'm sure," said her father; "it might be one of a
dozen people. You had better go and sing out 'friend or foe' over
the veranda; but I dare say it isn't a horse at all. More probably
it is old Hadji with the mail bag that ought to have come with the
parcel yesterday."
But the three elder children had disappeared out on to the veranda
and were leaning over, straining their eyes down the road that
wound up the hill from the plain.
It was a very rough road, with ruts in it sometimes two or three
feet deep. During the rains little better than a bog, it was now
burnt hard as flint.
There was nothing to be seen though a mile of road was visible,
lost now and then among bends; but the children listened
breathlessly, and at last Eustace said,--
"It is two horses and a four-wheel buggy, and it has only just
begun the hill. Let's go in and tell father."
"Oh, what a bother it is so far off!" Nesta exclaimed, with a sigh
of impatience. "We shall have to wait ages to find out who it is."
"Who do you think it can be, father?" Peter asked, as Eustace
explained what he believed to be coming.
"How should I know?" Mr. Orban answered with mock seriousness.
"It might be a magician with milk-white steeds, or a fairy
godmother, Peter, in a coach made out of pumpkins," said Mrs.
Orban.
"O mother!" Peter cried impatiently, "don't be silly--"
The sentence was never completed; it finished in a howl of mingled
pain and rage.
"What on earth is the matter now?" asked Mr. Orban.
"Eustace ki-ki-kicked me," stormed Peter, making a dive at his
brother with doubled fists; but his father caught him and held him
pinioned.
"I can pretty well guess why," said the big man severely. "If he
hadn't, I should have spanked you myself. How dare you say 'don't
be silly' to your mother?"
Peter hung his head.
"I didn't mean--" he began.
"I should just think you didn't mean it," said his father. "You'll
kindly remember you've no right by birth to be a cad, and it is
caddish for a gentleman to speak like that to a lady--whether he is
ten years old or a hundred."
"Besides," said Eustace, looking furiously at the small culprit,
"mother couldn't be silly if she tried."
Peter's humbled expression changed.
"It wasn't for you to kick me," he spluttered resentfully; "I'll
kick you back."
"Oh, if you like to be a donkey," began Eustace in a lordly tone.
"Who was donkey first?" demanded Peter.
"I guess," said Nesta, who was accustomed to these scenes, "the
buggy may be in sight at the first bend by now. I'm going to look."
Eustace followed.
"Well, Peter, what comes next?" asked Mr. Orban, without letting go
the child's wrists.
Peter looked over his shoulder towards his mother--the blue eyes
were swimming with tears, there was a choke in his voice.
"I'm sorry, mummie," he gasped.
The next moment he was clasped in his mother's arms, there was a
manful struggle with gathering tears, and then like an arrow from a
bow Peter was off to the veranda with every intention of thumping
Eustace soundly. But the news that greeted him there put the recent
fray right out of his mind.
"It is a buggy, Peter," said Nesta, "and I believe Bob Cochrane is
driving it."
Now the Cochranes were the Orbans' nearest neighbours--the family
that lived only five miles away. It consisted of a father and
mother and this young fellow Robert, who was six-and-twenty, the
idol and greatest admiration of the Orban children's hearts. In
their eyes there was nothing Bob could not do; his shooting, his
driving and riding, his jokes, his ways--everything about him was
wonderful. A visit from Bob was a splendid event, no matter what
the hour of the day.
Bob had a sister who was about the twins' age, and Nesta's only
friend.
"It looks just like Bob's driving," said Eustace.
Then they waited with eager faces, too excited to speak, till
suddenly they all cried at once,--
"It is Bob--it is--it is--it is!"
Mr. and Mrs. Orban came out on to the veranda, Becky toddling
behind.
"There is no doubt about it," said Mr. Orban as he watched the
jolting, bumping carriage toiling up the terribly steep hill that
was almost too much for the horses, fine beasts though they were.
"How strange of him to come in the buggy instead of riding, as he
is alone," said Mrs. Orban.
"Yes," chimed in Nesta, "that was just what I was thinking. Bob
always--always rides, excepting--"
She paused to think whether she had ever seen Bob driving before,
and Eustace finished her sentence for her.
"Excepting when he doesn't," he said.
"Goose," said Nesta tartly.
"Or, more correctly speaking, 'gander,'" said Mr. Orban. "Well, we
needn't squeeze our heads to a pulp trying to guess what we shall
learn from Bob without the slightest trouble in another twenty
minutes at most."
When Bob Cochrane came within earshot he was greeted with such a
chorus of yells that not a single word could he hear of what the
children were trying to say. He grinned back good-humouredly,
waved, and whipping up his horses, came as fast as he could under
the veranda. Then he gathered the meaning of the noise.
"What have you come for, Bob?" shouted the three.
"What have I come for?" he repeated, with his particular laugh
which had a way of setting every one else off laughing too as a
rule. "Well, upon my word, that is a nice polite way to greet a
chap. I had better be off again."
He was big, fair-haired, and gray-eyed, not handsome, but far too
manly for that to matter. As Manuel the Manila boy ran round the
house to take charge of the horses, Bob got down from the buggy and
sprang up the veranda steps in contradiction of his own words. He
was surrounded at the top by the children, all talking at once.
Without an attempt at answering, he picked up Becky, who adored him
with the rest, and passed on to Mr. and Mrs. Orban.
"I apologize for the disorder," Mr. Orban said, "but they have been
working themselves up into a fever of expectation ever since they
first heard the buggy wheels. Seriously though, I hope nothing is
wrong at home. Your mother isn't ill, is she? You haven't come to
fetch the wife as nurse, or anything?"
Such friendly acts as these were the common courtesies of their
simple colonial life. But Bob only laughed now.
"Oh, nothing wrong at all," he replied. "Mater is right enough; it
is only Trix who is the trouble now. She doesn't seem to pick up
after that last bout of fever, and she is so awfully depressed and
lonely, mother thought if you would let me take a couple of the
children--Nesta and another--back with me for a week, it might
brighten the kiddy up. Could you spare them, Mrs. Orban?"
"With pleasure," began Mrs. Orban readily, when Nesta started a
sort of war-dance with accompanying cries of delight.
"When you have quite done!" said Bob, with a solemn stare that
quelled the disturbance after a moment. "I shan't have an ear to
hear with by the time I get home, at this rate. Well, who is the
other one to be? You, Eustace?"
Eustace coloured deeply. There was nothing he would have liked
better. To go to the Highlands, as the Cochranes' plantation was
called, was the greatest pleasure that could have been offered
him--the treat had only come his way about twice in his life. It
meant so much--rides with Bob, shooting with Bob, long rambles
always with his hero.
"I should like to awfully," he said, and stopped, looking
beseechingly at his father.
"Why, what's the matter, old chap?" asked Bob in a kindly voice.
"You're as limp as if all the starch had been boiled out of you.
Come along if you want to, of course. Peter can come another time,
if it's afraid of being selfish that you are."
"But it isn't that," Eustace said with difficulty. "I mean I can't.
You see, father is going away, and I couldn't leave mother."
Bob darted a quick look at Mr. Orban.
"Are you really going away?" he asked--"any distance, I mean?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Mr. Orban said gravely. "I have to be away
about a fortnight or three weeks. I go the day after to-morrow."
Bob looked serious.
"Oh, I say," he said, "I'm sorry."
To Nesta, standing there in the sunshine, with a great big pleasure
ahead of her, the words conveyed nothing beyond a civil sympathy
with the annoyance it must be to Mr. Orban to have to go away on
business. To Eustace, who must stay behind, there was something
underlying those few words that brought back all the fears of the
day before.
"It is a nuisance, but it can't be helped," Mr. Orban said;
"business won't wait."
"I am sorry," repeated Bob, with that same strange solemnity,
"because I can't offer to come and stay here while you are away.
Father is going away too, and of course I couldn't leave the mater
and Trix. If only it hadn't happened just now--"
"It is very good of you to think of it, Bob," said Mrs. Orban, "but
of course we shall be perfectly safe. I think I would rather you
took Peter, though," she added in a lower tone. "Eustace is more
companionable. I can spare one of the twins, but not both at once."
"Of course," agreed Bob.
He was strangely unlike his usual cheerful self, but he roused
himself, as every one seemed to be looking at him, and added,
"Could the children be ready to go back with me soon?"
"Stay till the heat is over, and drive home in the cool with them,"
suggested Mr. Orban. "I'll say good-bye for the present; I'm due at
the plantation."
Eustace was left alone with Bob, for the others went with their
mother to watch her preparations for their departure.
"Well, old man," questioned Bob from the depths of a cane chair,
where he had flung himself for a quiet smoke, "what's up?"
Eustace stood staring at him.
"I say," he said with some difficulty, "it's beastly about father
going, isn't it?"
"Rather," said Bob carelessly. "Mrs. Orban will feel awfully dull."
"That isn't the worst of it," said the lad mysteriously.
"Really?" questioned Bob indifferently, as he packed his pipe with
great apparent interest.
"You know it isn't, Bob," Eustace broke out desperately.
"Do I?" questioned Bob lazily, but with a shrewd glance at the
thin, pale face before him. "Why, what's the trouble?"
"It's the black-fellows," Eustace said in a half whisper.
Bob raised his eyebrows a little, and was again attentive to his
pipe.
"Indeed?" he said; "what about them?"
"They are all round us in the scrub; you never know where they
are," Eustace said with a gulp.
"They always are, and one never does," said Bob lightly. "I don't
see that it matters. Are you in a funk about them?"
The cool question brought crimson to Eustace's cheeks.
"No," he said sturdily, "but they are a fearfully low grade lot,
and--and they have done some awful things in lonely places, out of
revenge, on white people."
Bob looked up sharply.
"What do you know about it?" he asked in a voice that sounded
almost stern.
"The servants--Kate and Mary--have told us stories," Eustace
explained.
"Oh, they have, have they?" Bob positively snorted in indignation.
"Then they deserve to be sacked."
He was silent a long time, puffing out volumes of smoke, then he
said suddenly,--
"Look here, Eustace, don't get stupid and frightened about the
black-fellows. Your father has never done them any harm; they have
nothing to revenge here, for he hasn't interfered with any of
them."
"But Kate says that doesn't matter," Eustace said dismally. "She
says they have a deadly hatred against all white people."
"Kate is an ignorant goose," growled Bob; "much she can know about
it! Why, my father has had black-fellows in his employment for
years, and they've been all right. Don't you listen to Kate's
nonsense."
There was silence awhile, then Bob went on,--
"But I tell you what I'll do, if it will be any comfort to Mrs.
Orban. I'll come over nearly every day and hang about the place as
if I were living here. How would that do?"
"I should like it, of course, and I believe mother would," said the
boy slowly.
"Of course you would be all right anyhow," Bob said bracingly.
"Of course," repeated Eustace with less certainty, hesitated, then
went on haltingly, "but supposing--of course I believe you,
Bob--but just only supposing one night some black-fellows did turn
up, what should you do?"
"I should shoot them," Bob said promptly.
"But if you were me?" questioned Eustace.
"Oh, if I were you," repeated Bob thoughtfully. "Well, of course,
you wouldn't shoot them--they wouldn't be scared enough of a chap
your size. On the whole, I think if I were you I should scoot down
the hill as hard as I could go for Robertson, Farley, and Ashton.
They would soon settle matters."
"But that would be leaving mother to face them alone," objected
Eustace.
Bob stared solemnly for one moment, then broke into a laugh.
"Cheer up, old boy," he exclaimed; "you look as if you had a whole
tribe at your heels this minute. Why, what has happened to you? I
thought you had more spirit than to be scared by a pack of silly
maids' stories."
The laugh was so genuine, the look in Bob's eyes so quizzical, that
Eustace felt suddenly abashed, and as if he had been making a
stupid fuss about nothing. With all his heart he wished he had not
mentioned the subject to Bob--Bob whose opinion he valued above all
others, except, perhaps, his own father's.