‘I can’t sit there and watch you working away by yourself,’ and she
helped to hold the slabs, whilst he and Bridget secured them with
lashings.
Four, ten feet long, tied at the ends, and upon them cross-pieces, and
upon these the long dining-room table. This was the raft; and while
Fortescue tied and knotted and fastened, he talked of how he had once
been cast away in a yacht, and had then learned many things. And the
pair, listening to his cheery voice, took courage, albeit the water
now was waist high.
The seasoned pine timber floated like a cork, and to his satisfaction
Fortescue found that with their combined weight it was still well out
of the water. He was just considering whether it might be possible to
secure a few valuables and important papers, when an ominous creaking
caught his ear, and the house began to quiver bodily.
Hurriedly jumping on board and seizing a long thin slab, he pushed
off. And what a wild sight it was outside, as the frail craft shot
clear of everything into the flood!
The water ran like brown oil, swift but waveless, bearing with it
logs, great trees, posts and rails, planks, heaps of straw, _débris_
of every description, whilst into the still, warm air ascended a stern
hum like the sound of some mighty engine. It was like the sound of the
river purring with satisfaction at the fulfilling of its last night’s
promises.
Looking back, they saw through the open front the lamp, like some
welcoming beacon, burning steadily across the waters. Even as they
gazed, there was a faint crash heard, and the light disappeared. The
house had gone, and in another moment its fragments drifted by them.
Round and round they swept, now threatened by some huge uptorn tree
whose bristling roots came nigh transfixing them, now nearly dashed
against the topmost limbs of a standing one, taking all Fortescue’s
strength and skill to avoid a collision.
Presently they saw, on either hand, long strings of sheep swimming
down the current with plaintive bleatings to their death; heard, too,
shrill neighings and bellowings of drowning cattle and horses.
Round and round they swept, although they knew it not, towards the
raging central current, where disaster was inevitable; whilst Daisy
sat with white face, mute, and almost hopeless, and Bridget crouched,
one arm around a table leg, mumbling over her beads; and Barton’s
Jackaroo, the man without a backbone, toiled steadily and watchfully,
still finding time, at intervals, to throw a word of cheer to his
helpless companions.
Crash! and a log overtaking them and hitting them end-on, sent the
raft spinning; whilst to his dismay Fortescue felt the slabs begin to
loose and spread. Decidedly, a few more knocks like that, and they
would all find themselves in the water.
‘I’m afraid, Herbert, it’s going to pieces,’ whispered Daisy, who had
crept close to where he knelt.
It was the first time she had ever used that name when addressing him,
and her voice sounded so inexpressibly sweet that, without even
glancing at Bridget, he turned and took the girl in his arms and
kissed her, a caress which she, thinking her end at hand, and loving
him, returned.
Smash! and they are amongst the stout upper branches of what must be a
giant tree. But, in place of pushing off, Fortescue hugs and pulls,
and calls upon the women to help him, which they do until the raft is
moored, so to speak, hard and fast between forks and branches, the
only ones visible now over all that brown, bare waste of water with
silver patches of moonlight here and there upon it.
It was a grateful thing to be at rest, even so precariously, after all
the twisting and twirling they had come through; and Bridget, rising
stiffly and shaking herself, with the fear of present death gone out
of her soul, said,—
‘Praise the saints! Sure, Misther Fortyskeu, sorr, we oughter to be
thankful for gettin’ this far wid clane shkins, so we ought! Sorra a
one ov me ’ll go any furder if I can help it! Is the wather raisin’
yet, does ye think, sorr?’
‘I’m afraid it is, Bridget,’ said Fortescue, as he sat on a stout limb
supporting Daisy beside him. ‘I hope, though, it won’t rise over the
top of this tree.’ But, disquieted by the idea, he presently got into
the water and tightened the lashings of the raft as well as he was
able.
It was a long, dreary night, especially after the moon went down.
Fortunately it was warm and fine. Indeed, throughout that trying time
of flood, curiously enough, not a single point of rain fell in that
region. They talked of many things, these two, nestling snugly in a
great fork of the giant apple-tree, but their chief subject was the
old, old story; whilst Bridget, just below them, alternately invoked
heavenly succour and lamented earthly losses.
‘Twinty wan poun’ notes undther me head in the bolsther, an’ me too
hurried an’ flurried to remimber ’em! Sure, it’s clane roond I am
afther this noight, bad cess to it! But for Father Dennis’s wather—may
glory be his bed whin his toime comes—it’s at the bottom wid the sheep
and craturs I’d be afore now, so it is! May the saints above sind the
blessed light an’ the masther wid a ship to us! Ochone! Miss Daisy, me
darlin’, I knows it’s hard on ye too. An’ for ye too, sorr—God forgive
me thinkin’ ye wasn’t quite so smart as ye moight be!’
And so she rambled on, unheeded by the lovers perched in the big fork
above her.
Dawn at last, bright and clear, with presently a brilliant sun.
To his relief, Fortescue saw by the marks on the tree that the water
was falling. By noon the raft was suspended high and dry. But still a
lamentable procession of sheep and household _débris_, with an
occasional horse or bullock, hurried along the swift central stream,
at whose very verge a merciful Providence had arrested the raft.
Presently Fortescue was lucky enough to secure a pumpkin out of the
dozens floating about, and the three divided and ate it with an
appetite. Slowly the shadows lengthened. Other tree tops, dishevelled
and dirty with driftage, began to appear around them. The water was
falling rapidly. But were they to pass another night there? Fortescue
began to fear so, and was even setting about the construction of a
platform out of the raft, when a loud ‘_Coo-ee-e-e!_’ made him start.
‘_Coo-ee-e-e!_’ in answer; and then a small boat pulled by two men
came through the branches of the big tree.
‘Hoorar!’ shouted one. ‘We was afraid it was all up with yees! But
where’s the Boss?’
‘My father went to the out-station yesterday,’ replied Daisy.
‘Oh, then he’s right enough,’ said the man. ‘Bet your life, miss, he
ain’t very far away this minute! He’s seed, afore now, what the “bit
of a fresh” turned to. Hand us down the lady fust, guv’nor.’
But old Bridget, being lowest, and in a hurry, suddenly let herself
drop fairly on the speaker’s shoulders, fetching him down, and nearly
capsizing the boat. Then, to his infinite astonishment, she got her
arms round his neck and hugged him, and would have served his mate the
same way, but he sprang into the tree and avoided her.
‘Where are your waggons?’ asked Fortescue, as at last they pulled off.
‘Ten foot under water, by this,’ replied the carrier, ‘seein’ it was
up to the naves afore we left. We knowed nothin’ till we feels it in
our blankets. Then up we jumps, and, behold you, we’re on a hiland
about twenty foot round, an’ the flood a-roarin’ like billyho. As luck
’ll ’ave it, Tom, there, has this boat in his loadin’, takin’ her to a
storekeeper at Overflow—I expect he’s a-thinkin’ on her just now. So
we hiked her out, paddles an’ all, gits some tucker, an’ steers for
Tarnpirr, knowin’ as you was a lot lower ’n we, an’ no boat. Well,
when we sees nothin’ but water where the house shud ha’ been, we
reckoned you’d all been swep’ away, so comes along on chance, cooeyin’
pretty often. By jakers, guv’nor, if you hadn’t ’appened to have savee
enough to chuck that thing together, you’d all a’ been gone goosers
sure enough! I don’t b’lieve there’s one single solitary ’oof left on
the run, not exceptin’ our bullocks an’ saddle ’orses.’
The castaways now made a much-needed meal off damper and some of the
Tarnpirr mutton, and voted it a wonderful improvement on raw pumpkin,
even with love for its sauce.
Before they had pulled a mile towards Warrooga, they met Mr Barton
with some residents in the police boat. He had been nearly frantic
with anxiety since, on returning home, he encountered the water, and,
galloping back, had with great difficulty reached the township.
* * * * *
‘What’s the use?’ replied Mr Barton despondently, when, that same
evening, Fortescue asked him for Daisy. ‘I’m a ruined man, and, like
most such, selfish, and I want to keep my little girl. So far as I can
gather, there’s not an animal of any description left alive on
Tarnpirr. Pastoral firms make no allowances; they’ll say I ought to
have cleared everything off before the flood came, and they’ll sack me
at a minute’s notice. Of course, if the people here had done as they
should, I might have saved most of the sheep, if not all. No; I don’t
like to disappoint you, after having behaved so nobly and pluckily—and
I must say now that I never did you justice—but I think, Mr Fortescue,
you’d better choose a wife elsewhere; I do, indeed.’
Seeing that Barton was irritable, and rather inclined to hug his
misfortune, Fortescue, perhaps wisely, said no more just then, and
apparently took his dismissal with a good grace.
But later, before starting for the capital, Daisy and he had a long
talk, during which a conspiracy was hatched.
Mr Barton bade his jackaroo a kindly good-bye; and if he felt any
surprise at the non-renewal of his suit, he never showed it.
He was expecting, with almost feverish impatience, a letter from the
firm in answer to his own report, with details of the disaster at
Tarnpirr. And when at length it arrived, after what seemed a long
delay, and he found that, instead of the reproaches and curt dismissal
he was prepared for, it contained sympathy and an appointment to a
large station on the Darling Downs, words were wanting to express his
utter astonishment, and his deep contrition for the bad opinion he had
formed of his employers.
‘Never mind, Daisy,’ he cried. ‘They say the owner will be there
himself to receive us on our arrival. I can thank him then in person.’
‘Dear me, how nice that will be!’ replied Daisy, demurely.
‘And, only fancy,’ he went on, ‘they request us to take our
servant—that’s Bridget, of course—with us! I’m to find out, too, if
those carriers lost much, and, if so, to compensate them.’
‘How very good and thoughtful they must be,’ answered Daisy—but this
time with moist eyes.
I will not insult the reader’s penetration by asking him to guess who
the owner of that Downs station was.
It will be sufficient to remark that Mr and Mrs Fortescue have only
just returned from their wedding trip to the Continent; and that it
will be very long indeed ere they forget that memorable night in ’90
upon which the waters came to Tarnpirr, and caused ‘Barton’s Jackaroo’
to show what he was made of.