THE BELLE OF BIRRALONG.
The two riders who had passed Marmot's store amid a cloud of dust, drew
rein at the school-house gate, the girl turning her horse off the road
and alongside the gate so that she could lean down and pull back the
catch. As the gate swung open, she looked over her shoulder to where her
long, thin-limbed companion sat still in the saddle.
"Thank you," she said. "You have come a long distance out of your way,
but it is your own fault."
"That's nothing," he replied. "Only--I say--mayn't I come in?"
She walked her horse through the gateway as he spoke, and, wheeling it,
swung to the gate before she looked up and answered him.
"You said as far as the gate--and you are as far as the gate," she said,
with a mischievous smile on her face.
"Yes; but----here, hold on," he exclaimed as, with a wave of her hand,
just as she had waved it to the group on Marmot's verandah, the girl
started her horse up the narrow pathway that led past the school-house
into the paddock behind the cottage where she and her father, the
schoolmaster, lived.
[Illustration: "THANK YOU," SHE SAID. [_Page 30._]
The youth looked after her, with something of a glitter in his watery
blue eyes. As her horse entered the narrow space between the
school-house wall and the yard fence, the girl looked back again and
laughed, and the youth dug his spurs unnecessarily hard into his horse's
sides as he resumed his ride down the road. He felt that he ought to
have followed her through the gate--and he dared not.
The girl meanwhile rode past the cottage, which stood back from the
school-house, and into the paddock beyond, giving a soft coo-ee as she
passed. The horse found its own way to the shed where the bridle and
saddle were kept, and the girl lightly slipped from its back and took
off both. Having put them inside the shed, she roughly groomed the
horse--which stood so still, it seemed to be proud of the
attention--before returning to the cottage, the horse following her as
far as it could, with its nose rubbing against her shoulder.
Inside the cottage a pale, delicate-looking man sat in a chair in front
of a wood fire, on which a kettle was boiling and steaming. He put down
the book he was reading as she came in.
"I wasn't long, Dad, was I?" she asked, as she came across the room to
his side and bent down with her hand on his.
"No, child," he answered softly. "What news had the Murrays?"
"Oh, it was all the same old tune," she answered, as she stood up and
took off the mushroom straw hat she was wearing, revealing as she did so
the wealth of golden hair, twined round the top of her head in a heavy
coiled plait, to which she owed the name of "yaller head" among the
frequenters of Marmot's verandah. "It was all Tony Taylor, Tony Taylor,
Tony Taylor. Heavens! why can't the man go gold-digging if he wants to?
The way people talk----"
"Who came with you down the road?" her father interrupted to ask.
"Oh, that fool of a Dickson," she replied, with a short laugh. "He was
hanging around the place, so I told Nellie Murray to go out and see what
he wanted; and she, big fool that she is, brought him in, and then
nothing would do him but he must ride home with me."
"Well, _he_ didn't talk Tony Taylor all the time," her father said,
laughing.
"That's just what he did," she retorted. "It was Tony Taylor all the
way, until I told him to shut up. They make me tired. Now, what are you
laughing at?" she broke off to ask, as she looked up and caught her
father's glance.
"Oh, nothing," he answered. "I was only wondering what Dickson had to
say about him."
"About Tony? Well, he said--you remember what I told you he said the
other night about his mother? Now he says that she would like to see
some of us, or have some of us go over to the station some day. How can
the poor thing see us when she is as blind as a flying fox?"
"But that's not what Dickson said about Tony. I asked----"
"Oh, chut, chut, chut!" the girl exclaimed, as she waved her hands
quickly to and fro in front of his face. "Do please let the dear man
rest while I get tea ready. Don't I tell you it makes me tired? Willy
Dickson was bad enough all the way home, without having more of it here.
People would think I care what happens to Tony Taylor;" and she stood
looking down at her father with wide-opened blue eyes that were as
innocent of deception as a babe's.
"I wish you did," her father said quickly. "He's one of the----"
"Now, you're not going to begin again?" she asked; and, without waiting
for an answer, she turned away and began preparing the table for the
evening meal.
Her father sat watching her as she moved about, not speaking again, for
in turning away and busying herself with something, she had shown as
much temper as ever she showed over anything, and her father understood
the symptom. It was one of her peculiarities that she only evinced the
fact that she had a temper when she was reminded that certain of the
young men in the district had lost their hearts to her, and had left the
neighbourhood because of their inability to repair that loss. Not that
she objected to the first part of the indictment; it was rather
pleasant, from her point of view, to have the command of the entire
youth of the district. What she objected to was the going away of
individual units from Birralong, just because she did not see fit to
deny herself the pleasure of the society of all the other youths in
exchange for that of just one. It always happened in that manner;
always the departure of some youth for the western stations, the
northern gold-fields, the coastal towns, or the droving routes, had been
preceded by one, sometimes two, and sometimes more, interviews with her,
in which, as she usually told them, they made her "feel tired." Always
except once. Tony Taylor had gone off and had hardly wished her
good-bye, and Tony and she had been as brother and sister, only more so,
since the day when they first met and began to climb through all the
standards of the State-school education, beginning at the very lowest of
the grades, together.
Tony used to ride in to the school in those days, for Birralong was in
its infancy and the school was only just opened. Taylor's Flat, the
selection where he lived, was a dozen miles away, and Tony used to come
and have dinner with her and her mother and father. He used to ride in
bare-back on a big old splodgy dray-horse named Tom, which had been
worked in the dray and at the plough until there was only jog-trot
servility left in him. But Tony--clad in a pair of knickerbockers cut
down from a pair of Taylor's moleskins, a flannel shirt with the sleeves
rolled up and the neck innocent of a button, with neither shoes nor
stockings on his brown little feet and legs, and with an old soft felt
hat, discarded by the elder Taylor, and consequently as many sizes too
big for Tony as his knickerbockers were--was a proud boy as he rode
through the township every day to and from school, his little legs
barely reaching across the broad back of the old dray-horse. He was the
only one who rode in, and that, together with his eight years and quick
wits, made him a hero in the mind of the Irish-named, Saxon-haired
daughter of the schoolmaster.
There had been a community of interests between them from those days of
irresponsible childhood; and when, in later days, Ailleen lost her
mother, and her father developed the state of health which made him more
and more delicate every year, the community of interests grew, for
whatever her troubles were, Tony was always ready to share them; and he
was the only boy who made no protests about her being friends with all
the others, and treating them all on a level when circumstances were
kind enough to put some entertainment in her way. He had always seemed
to understand her, for he had never talked as some of the others had,
particularly those who had suddenly made up their minds to leave
Birralong, and for that reason alone she was satisfied with him.
But there came a time when this sense of satisfaction was disturbed.
Very slight indeed was the first indication of the disturbance--so
slight, in fact, that it had not been apparent to Ailleen herself until
it had gained considerable strength; enough, at all events, to make
itself distinctly and unpleasantly manifest.
She had, one day, been amused at the remarks Dickson had passed on
Tony's appearance. There was a touch of malice in the remarks, for Tony,
in the old school-days they all had shared together, had thrashed
Dickson with a bridle, and she had laughed at the one and smiled upon
the other. Dickson had never forgotten the chastisement he received
from a boy younger and a head shorter than himself; and as the years
passed he still nursed his enmity, giving vent to it in vindictive and
malicious remarks about the absent Tony, for he remembered the boyish
thrashing too well to speak his opinions in his rival's presence. So it
was that when Ailleen heard Dickson denouncing Tony's appearance, she
had been amused, until a chance remark struck her and set her thinking;
and as she thought, the conviction grew upon her that the very subject
of the remark which had struck her so forcibly had been in her mind,
unconsciously, for years. Now that she had had it brought face to face
with her, as it were, its significance was so pronounced she wondered
how it had escaped her all the years she had known Tony and the rest of
the Taylor family.
The fact was that Tony was absolutely different, in manner, face, and
figure, from every member of the family of Taylor's Flat.
The next time she met him she had teased him about it, asking who it was
he took after, and such-like questions; and Tony had replied with an
abruptness which was so unusual in him that she had at first felt
amused, until it began to rankle. Then she resented it, and when they
met again, she was equally abrupt to him as he had been to her, and had,
moreover, given a great deal of attention to what Dickson, who was
present, said and did, while ignoring, as far as she could, the very
existence of Tony. Then the three lucky diggers had come to the
Carrier's Rest, and every one was talking of gold-mining to such an
extent that she saddled her horse and rode out to see and chat with her
bosom friend, Nellie Murray.
When she returned, her father told her that Tony had been in during the
day to bid him good-bye, as he was off in the morning for the new field.
And from that moment it seemed to her that every one she met could talk
or think of nothing but Tony going gold-mining. It was getting
monotonous, and, to relieve her feelings, she put down the plate she had
in her hands with unnecessary force.
Her father looked up from his book.
"Is it necessary to break it?" he asked quietly.
She laughed lightly.
"I was doing the very thing I blame in the others," she answered. "But
there, tea's ready now, so we'll say no more about it--or him," she
added.
Throughout the meal Godson watched his daughter, and after it was over,
and she sat near the lamp sewing with deft fingers, he kept his eyes on
her. She was a handsome girl, and there was plenty of excuse for the
male youth of Birralong losing their hearts to her. She was both tall
and well formed, with a figure that made her look like a Venus posing as
a bush-bred girl. The wealth of glorious hair surmounted a shapely head,
and although her features were not of classical regularity, there was
character in every one, and character that was pleasing to the masculine
eye, albeit it savoured strongly of independence and self-reliance.
It would have been a satisfaction to her father to know that her future
was in some measure provided for by the plighted affection of such a man
as Tony, for he shared the general admiration for the boy he had
educated, and who, dare-devil as he was in many ways, had in him the
makings of a sturdy, useful member of society. Taylor's Flat was a good
selection, and even if it did not descend to Tony, there was plenty more
good land in the colony, and Ailleen was versed enough in the methods of
the bush to prove a useful helpmate to a hard-working selector.
But a man is not much use as a matchmaker, and whenever he did try to
suggest anything of the kind to Ailleen, she had nothing but laughter
and raillery for him in reply. And yet, the pay he received from the
Education Department was not very much, and would die with him, and
Ailleen had no relative in the world but himself, while there were very
few ways for a girl to earn her living in the bush, save that of
domestic service, and that meant drudgery. He knew the frailness of the
bond which kept his body and soul together. At any moment almost it
might snap, and then----he always turned with a shudder away from the
thought.
"What are you thinking of, Dad?" Ailleen asked suddenly.
"I was thinking----" Godson began.
"So was I," she interrupted, with a laugh. "I was thinking of--Mrs.
Dickson."
"What about her?"
"Well," she said, as she put the article she had been sewing on the
table in front of her, and pushed it away to the full length of her
arms, looking at it with her head on one side and her eyebrows raised,
"I was thinking what a lonely thing it must be to be blind. Fancy the
poor creature all alone all day in the dark--because it must be dark to
her. Nellie Murray says there are some funny things said about her, but
she doesn't believe they are true. That's why I should like to see her,
just to see what she is like. Willy says she's awful scotty."
"I should not be surprised at it--with him," Godson answered.
"Oh, he's----" she gathered up her work instead of finishing the
sentence. "But I would like to go over to the station and see Mrs.
Dickson," she added brightly. "It's the first time she has agreed even
to let us go near the house, so Willy says, and both Nellie and I want
to go. Do you think we ought?"
"Would it keep you away if I said no?" Godson asked, with a twinkle in
his eyes.
"Of course it would," she replied, looking at him quickly.
"Umph," he said. "Wait till Tony comes back, and ask his opinion."
"Oh, bother Tony!" she exclaimed sharply. "Nellie and I said we would go
over on Thursday. Nellie said she would make Bobby come as well. Do you
see the idea? He and I can ride together, and that leaves----"
"Oh, that's it, is it?" Godson asked, with a smile.
Ailleen nodded, and the smile grew on Godson's face. It pleased him
better than if it had been the other way about.