Books: Mates at Billabong

M >> Mary Grant Bruce (1878 1958). >> Mates at Billabong

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

They shot up the last furlong of the drive. At the big gate of the
yard--very few people, not even bishops, go to the front gate of a Bush
homestead--Brownie stood, her broad face beaming. As they pulled up,
Murty O'Toole came forward to take the horses--a marked compliment from
Murty, who, like most head stockmen, was a free and independent soul.

Jim went over the wheel with a bound, and seized Brownie's hand.

"How are you, Brownie, dear?"

"The size of him!" said she. "The shoulders. No wonder they 'ad you for
captin of the football eleven, then, my dear!" The boys grinned widely.
"If not eleven, then it's four," said Brownie placidly. "Strange, I
can't never remember which, an' it don't sinnerfy, any'ow. Welkim
'ome--an' you too, Master Wally."

"How are you, Murty?" Jim shook hands with the stockman, while Wally
bowed low over Brownie's hand.

"I've lived for this moment," he said, fervently. "Brownie, you grow
younger every time I go away!"

"Naturally!" said Norah from the buggy.

"Be silent, minx!" said Wally, over his shoulder. "Who are you to break
in on a heart-to-heart talk, anyhow? At this present moment, Mrs.
Brown, you look seventeen!"

"Get along with you, now, do!" said the delighted Brownie. "You're no
better than you was, I'm afraid, Master Wally--alwuz ready for your
joke!"

"Joke!" exclaimed he, indignantly. "Any one who'd make a joke of you,
Brownie, would rob a church. Jim might, but I--"

"Perish the idea!" said Jim, tipping the orator's hat over his eyes.
"Come and take things out of the buggy."

Across the yard came Mr. Linton, surrounded by a mixed assemblage of
dogs. Puck and the collie had already hurled themselves upon Jim in a
delirium of joy. Cecil strolled after his uncle, looking slightly
amused at the scene by the gate.

"We're quite a family," Mr. Linton said. "I begin to feel like Mr.
Pickwick at a Christmas gathering! Do you think Billabong will stand
the crowd, Mrs. Brown?"

"It looks to me, sir," said Mrs. Brown contentedly, "as if Billabong's
goin' to 'ave the time of its life!"

CHAPTER VII

JIM UNPACKS

Holler-days
Were made for boys to holler!

Jim's room was a rather vast place, with two long windows opening upon
the balcony, two exceedingly plain iron bedsteads in different corners,
and in the midst a wide, vacant space, where a punching-ball was fixed
whenever the owner was at home. There was a very shabby old leather
armchair by one window, and near the other an even shabbier leather
couch, very wide and solid. Jim used to declare that they were the most
comfortable in the house, and nothing would have induced him to have
them altered in any way.

One wall held a medley of various articles: Jim's rifle, the sporting
gun his father had given him when he was fifteen, a revolver that had
been through two wars, and a cavalry sword his grandfather had carried,
together with an assortment of native weapons from various
countries--assegais, spears, boomerangs, throwing sticks, sjamboks and
South Sea Island clubs and shields. A special nail held Jim's own
stockwhip, to which Norah always attended after he had gone away, lest
the supple thong should become harsh through disuse. Then there were
weapons of peace--hockey sticks, rackets, cricket-bats--the latter an
assortment of all Jim had used, from the tiny one he had begun with at
the age of eight to the full sized beauty that had split honourably in
an inter-State school match the preceding summer.

All over the other walls were plainly framed photographs. Mr. Linton
and Norah were there, in many positions, with and without horses; then
there were pictures of all the favourite horses and ponies and dogs on
the place, and a big enlargement of Billabong house itself. The others
were school photographs, mostly football and cricket teams, tennis
fours, the school crew, and some large groups at the yearly sports. In
nearly all you could find Jim himself--if you looked closely enough. Jim
loathed being photographed, and always retired as far out of sight in a
group as his inches would permit.

The room held many of Jim's own manufactured ideas--his "contraptions,"
Brownie used to call them. There was a telephone he had rigged up when
he was twelve, communicating with Norah's room by the balcony; and
outside was a sort of fire escape, by which he could--and generally
did--descend without using the stairs. There were various pieces of bush
carpentry--a table, a candlestick and a book-case of his own
construction, which in Norah's eyes were better than beautiful. There
was an arrangement by which he could open his door or his windows
without getting out of bed--which was ingenious, but quaint, since Jim
was never known to shut his windows, and very rarely his door.
Altogether it was an interesting room, and very typical of Jim.

At present it resembled a maelstrom, for Wally and Jim were unpacking.
Brownie, putting in her head, described it as "a perfick shambles," and
affected great horror at the havoc occasioned by having boys in the
house--beaming all the while in a manner calculated to destroy the
effect of any lecture. Norah, perched on the end of the sofa, which was
the only free spot in the room, looked on at the operations with deep
interest. Occasionally, when some special parcel was unearthed, one of
the boys diverted her attention laboriously, since it was near
Christmas-time, which is ever a season of mysteries. The parcel stowed
away hastily in a cupboard, Norah was permitted to gaze once more,
unrestricted.

"What's that, Jim?" she asked, catching a glimpse of silver in the
recesses of a suitcase.

"Oh, nothing."

"I believe it's your cup," said his sister excitedly. "Do make him show
me, Wally!"

"The mug it is!" said Wally, diving in under Jim's nose, and snatching
the article in question. "Don't be an ass, Jimmy--d'you expect to keep
it always in your boot-bag?"

"Very nice place for it," Jim was understood to mutter.

"Ripping--but you'll want it for your boots. Catch, Norah!"

The big silver cup flew across the room, and was deftly fielded by the
lady on the end of the sofa.

"Oh, isn't it a beauty!" she said delightedly. "Jimmy, I'm so proud to
know you!"

"You ought to have seen him going up to get it," Wally said. "Lovely
sight--he blushed so prettily!"

"Blush be hanged!" said the victim.

"Don't be ashamed, my child; it's a very nice thing to be able to
blush," Wally grinned. "No one would ever dream you could, either, so
it's a happy surprise as well!"

"There's not a blush about you, that's one thing," said Jim, from the
depths of his big box.

"Wore out all my powers that way blushing over you!" was Wally's prompt
reply. "Norah, will you use that thing for cocoa, or what?"

"Don't be disrespectful--I'm admiring it," Norah answered, turning the
cup round. "Dad will like it awfully."

"Has he shown you his prizes?"

"Prizes!" Norah exclaimed, falling off the arm of the sofa in
amazement. "Jim, you horrid boy, you never told us. Show me at once!"

"Never thought about 'em," said the unhappy Jim, un-earthing two
resplendent books. "Here you are, anyhow--and Wally needn't talk; he's
got three!"

"I'm faint in the presence of so much learning!" Norah said, sitting
down on a golf bag. "Who'd ever have suspected you? French and
Prefect's Prize--oh, l'm so glad you got that one, Jim, dear." Her quick
ear caught a step, and she called her father excitedly.

Mr. Linton entered, to be greeted by incoherent tidings of his son's
success, to the meaning of which the two books lent aid.

"That's especially good news, old chap," he said quietly, whereat Jim
grinned happily, blushed with fervour, and muttered something entirely
inaudible. "The cup, too! that's a beauty, and no mistake!" He looked
round the "perfick shambles," and laughed a little. "I don't think
they're very safe here," he said. "With your permission, I'll take
charge of them." He left the room, carrying the books and the cup with
him.

At the door he paused.

"Don't forget Cecil," he said quietly, and was gone.

The trio looked blank.

"Cecil!" said Wally.

"Hang Cecil!" from Jim disgustedly.

"Oh, he's such a bore!" Norah said. "And he'd simply hate to be in
here--he wouldn't see any fun in it. I--I really think I've had an
overdose of Cecil."

"Poor old kid!" said Jim. "Well, we'll hurry up unpacking and then find
him." They dismissed the "bit of a drawback" airily from their minds,
and proceeded with the business in hand, hampered slightly by much
energetic conversation. Jim's boxes were full of interesting things,
the result of his six years at school; his packing, he said, with
pained recollection, had been a "corker."

"Lucky I had that extra chest of drawers put in here," remarked Norah,
stowing away numerous small articles. "Jim, how many boys gave you
knives as farewell gifts?"

"Sorra a one of me knows," said her brother. "I lost count--and lost
some of the knives, too. I've an idea Bill Beresford picked up one I
dropped--the one Lance Western gave me; it's got a tortoise-shell
handle, and a nick out of the big blade--and gave it to me for himself."

"It sounds the sort of economical thing Bill would do," Wally remarked.

"Then there are five magnifying glasses, seven pencil cases, and six
pens," said Norah. "All tokens of affection, Jim? I'll put them in the
middle drawer."

"What on earth I'm going to do with 'em all," said their harassed
owner, "I'm sure I don't know. Does any one chap use five magnifiers in
his life? Never used one yet! I wish the fellows hadn't been so kind--it
was awfully brickish of them, though, wasn't it? And the Doctor gave me
this." He held up a large and solemn--looking book.

"What is it?"

"'Self Help,' by a chap named Smiles. Shouldn't have thought there were
many smiles about a book looking like that, but it shows you can't tell
everything by the cover. And Mrs. Doctor gave me this tie--knitted it
herself. It was jolly decent of her, wasn't it? She's always been
awfully kind to me," said the big fellow, who had no idea of what "Mrs.
Doctor" thought of his cheerful habit of picking up two or three of her
babies and treating them to a wild ride round the school grounds on his
back; and who had on one occasion sat up all night with a sick
three-year-old who had cried unreasonably for "Yinton" to come and
carry him. The boy had recovered, somewhat against expectations, and
Jim had thought no more of the matter, except to drop gently and firmly
into a gorse bush a fellow who had chaffed him for being a nursemaid.
He had been amazed, and greatly embarrassed, by the tears in little
"Mrs. Doctor's" eyes as she bade him good-bye. Nothing on earth would
have induced him to mention them.

"If the Doctor ever gives me anything barring the length of his tongue,
I'll have apoplexy!" remarked Wally. "We don't twin-soul a bit better
than we did. He caught me beautifully the other day. Three or four of
us were going to have a supper. I'd been into town to the dentist, and
was bringing home a lobster. Coming out, that idiot Bob Greenfield was
next me on the train, and he amused himself by rubbing the lobster
gently until the thin brown paper they wrap 'em in had worn through in
places. I was talking cricket for all I was worth, and never noticed
him. I'd bought an evening paper, and given him my lobster to hold
while I looked up some scores."

"Yes?" said Norah, happily.

"Well, we came to the school, and off I jumped, and just inside the
gate I ran into the Doctor. He was very affable, and we walked up
together, and he asked me quite affectionately how I'd got on with the
dentist, and altogether he might have been my long lost uncle!
Presently he glanced down at my parcel, and said, 'Been getting a boot
mended, Meadows?' I didn't know what to say for a moment. And while I
was floundering in my mind the string broke, and down went my parcel
with a clatter on the asphalt!"

"Why do I miss these things?" asked Jim, plaintively.

"I wish I'd missed it instead of you!" said his chum. "I picked it up
in a hurry, and the paper had burst pretty well all over-and-well, you
know, there's no disguising the colour of a lobster! I just held it,
and looked a fool, and the Doctor put up his eyeglass and looked it and
me all over. Then he said, 'Curious colour for a boot, Meadows'--and I
promptly turned the same shade as the lobster."

"Did you get into a row?" Norah asked.

"No; I will say for the old chap that he was a perfect brick," Wally
said. "He just grinned, and walked off, remarking that there was no
need to push investigations too far. And I fled, and the lobster was
tip-top, thank you."

"I don't see why you've any cause to grumble at the Doctor," was
Norah's comment.

"That's you, feminine ignorance," returned Wally. "He made me feel
small."

"Well, if I get a head mistress as easy-going--" said Norah, dolefully.

"Don't you get the idea into your mind that our revered Head's
easy-going!" Wally retorted. "He thinks nothing of skinning a fellow on
occasion--only he didn't happen to think a lobster was occasion--that
night, anyhow. You see, it was near the end of term, and even Heads get
soft!"

"Lots of em," said Jim; "look at your own!" He dodged a hairbrush
neatly. "Have a little sense, young Wally; don't you see I'm busy?
Norah, old chap, did you see my blazer?"

"I hung it in your wardrobe," said Norah promptly "Also your overcoat,
also your straw hat, also your cadet uniform--what are you going to do
with that, by the way, Jim?"

"Get photographed in it," said Wally, wickedly.

"I'm likely to!" Jim said, with fine scorn. "Goodness only knows--I may
find some fellow it'll fit. It certainly wouldn't fit me much longer."

"It's been the anxiety of the whole battalion," said Wally. "It creaked
and began to split whenever he drilled in it, and for the last six
parades we've always taken out a blanket in case we should need to
drape his tattered form on the way home! It's an uncommonly good thing
he's left. Most demoralizing for a young corps to see its corpulent
lieutenant bursting out of his uniform!"

"He's not corpulent," said Norah indignantly, whereat Jim, who
personified leanness with breadth of shoulder, grinned even more widely
than Wally, and patted her on the head as he passed with an armful of
clothes, which he stowed into his wardrobe much as he might have dumped
sacks of potatoes into a barn. Even Norah's wide and free views on the
subject of garments were not proof against the sight.

"Are those your good suits, Jim?"

"Yes," said her brother, cheerfully. "They're used to it. Chuck me that
coat, Wally."

Wally complied, and the coat--which happened to be the one belonging to
its owner's evening suit--was added to the heap in the wardrobe.

"I'll sort 'em out some time or other," said Jim. "I'm so jolly sick of
unpacking. Wally, you animal, you're not finished, are you?"

"Ages ago," said his chum. "Hadn't anything like your quantity, you
see. My clothes are neat and trim, and my pyjamas have blue ribbon in
them and I have put out my lace pin cushion and my tulle slippers, and
all is well! Now I feel I can go and play with Cecil with a quiet
mind!"

"I really don't know why I brought a lunatic home with me," Jim said,
patiently. "Sorry, Nor.; but we'll take him out in the scrub and lose
him. Meanwhile--" He closed the last drawer with a bang, and advanced
with slow deliberation upon the hapless Mr. Meadows.

For the next few minutes the air in the room was murky with pillows,
other missiles and ejaculations. Out of the turmoil came yelps, much
energetic abuse, and shrieks to Norah for aid to which that maiden, who
was enjoying herself hugely, lent a deaf ear. Finally, the combat
restricted itself principally to Wally's bed, from which the bedclothes
gradually disappeared, until they formed a tight bundle on the floor,
with Wally in the centre. Jim piled the mattress on top, and retreated
to the door.

"Beast!" said Wally, disentangling himself with difficulty, until he
sat on the pile, considerably dishevelled, and wearing a broad grin.
"It's only your vile brute force--some day I'll get even with you!" He
rose, hurled the mattress upon the bed, and looked inquiringly at his
blankets. "How do you imagine I'm going to sleep there to-night?"

"Oh, we'll fix it up when we come to bed," laughed Jim. "Come on--we
ought to go down to Cecil."

"Hold on till I brush my hair," said Wally, attacking his disturbed
locks, and settling his tie. "All right; lead on, Macduff!"

"Ready, Nor.?"

Norah hesitated.

"I'm going to my room for something," she said. "I'll be after you in a
few minutes, boys."

She disappeared within her room, and the boys clattered downstairs.
When they had gone, Norah slipped back noiselessly to Jim's apartment,
which gave the impression of having recently been the scene of a
cyclone. She laughed a little, looking at it from the doorway.

"It certainly is a 'perfick shambles'," she said. "Poor old chaps--and
they'll be so tired when they come up to bed!"

Moving quietly, she sorted out the tangled bedclothes and made up the
bed, and reduced to order some of the chaos in thc room. Then she
opened the wardrobe and took out the mass of clothes, sorting out the
suits and putting them away carefully, with a shake to the coats to
remove creases. The dress suit she laid in a drawer, running to her own
room for a tiny lavender bag to keep away the moths. She was closing
the drawer when she started at a step, and Jim came in.

"What on earth are you up to?" was his question. His eye travelled
round the room, taking in the open door of the wardrobe, and the dress
coat in the drawer, where stood his small sister, rather flushed.

"Well!" he said, and paused. "Weren't we beasts?"

"No, you weren't," said Norah indignantly.

"H'm," said Jim. "It's a jolly good thing when a fellow has a sister,
anyhow." He came over to her and put his arm round her shoulders. "Dear
old chap!" he said. They went down the stairs together.

CHAPTER VIII

A THUNDERSTORM

The Bush hath moods and changes, as the seasons rise and fall,
And the men who love the Bushland--they are loyal thro' it all.
A. B. PATERSON.

"The day after to-morrow is the date of the men's dance," Mr. Linton
said. "Norah mustn't go in for any wild exertion on that day, as she'll
probably want to dance several hundred miles at night. So if you boys
want to plan anything, you had better make your arrangements for
to-morrow."

"I don't know that I've energy enough to plan anything," said Jim,
lazily. He was lying full length on the lawn, his head on Norah. Wally
was close by, and Cecil and Mr. Linton occupied basket chairs. Peace
would have reigned supreme had not the mosquitoes kept every one busy.

"Any wishes, Cecil?"

"None whatever," said Cecil. "There are no people to go and see, I
think you said, Uncle David?"

"No one that would interest you," Mr. Linton said; and Wally and Jim,
who had groaned internally with fear of being taken "calling," felt
their spirits return.

"My brain's not equal to planning, as I remarked," Jim said. "But if I
go anywhere, I'd like to do so on a horse. I want to feel a horse under
me again."

"Hear, hear," from Wally, softly.

"Well, I can't go out to-morrow," said the squatter. "I've letters to
see to, and Anderson may be out; so you must look after
yourselves--which I believe you to be entirely capable of doing. Norah,
haven't you any ideas?"

"Loads," said Norah, promptly, "but they're all connected with
mosquitoes!" She aimed a vicious blow into space as she spoke, and
sighed, before rubbing the bite. "Well, suppose we ride out and boil
the billy somewhere along the river? Cecil, would you care for that?"

"Very much," said Cecil, in the tones that always gave the impression
that he despised the particular subject under discussion. Norah had
quite withdrawn the opinion formed in the first five minutes of their
acquaintance, that he was ill mannered--now she bewailed the fact that
he was so uniformly and painfully polite.

"Well, if you would--" she said, hesitatingly. "What do you boys think?"

"Grand idea," responded Wally. Norah loved Wally's way; he was always
so pleased and interested over any plan that might be formed. Jim was
wont to remark that if you arranged to clean out a pigsty, Wally would
probably regard it as a gigantic picnic, and enjoy his day hugely. She
smiled at him gratefully in the darkness.

"You too, Jim?"

"Rather--anything you like," said her brother. "What horse can I have,
Dad?"

Jim had no special horse of his own. His two ponies, Sirdar and Mick,
he had outgrown, although they were still up to anything of a lighter
weight--the former only inferior to Norah's beloved Bobs. His absences
from home were so long that it had not seemed worth while to procure
him a special horse, and for several holidays he had been accustomed to
ride any of the station mounts. Privately, Jim was not altogether
satisfied with the arrangement, although quite admitting its common
sense. Now that he had left school he intended to ask his father if he
could buy a horse.

"You can try my new purchase, Monarch, if you like," Mr. Linton
answered. "He's quite a decent mover--I think you'll like him."

Cecil bit his lip, under cover of the darkness. He coveted a ride on
both Bobs and Monarch, and had given hints on the subject, but neither
had been taken. Now Jim, nearly three years his junior, was lent
Monarch without even having asked for him; while he was still, he
presumed, to ride the steady-going Brown Betty, whom he thoroughly
despised, in spite of the fact that she had once got rid of him. He
registered another notch in his general grudge against Billabong.

Mr. Linton was absolutely ignorant of what passed in his nephew's mind.
To give the city boy, with his uncertain seat and heavy hands, anything
but a steady horse, never occurred to him; he would have regarded it as
little short of inviting disaster to put him on Monarch, thoroughbred
and newly broken in as he was; and, of course, no one but Norah ever
rode Bobs.

"That's all right," he said, as Jim expressed his pleasure. "And what
about you, Wally? You're too long now for Mick, I think."

"Oh, anything you like, sir," said Wally, easily. "I haven't met any
bad 'uns on Billabong. Warder, or Brown Betty, or Nan--have you got them
all still?"

"They're all here," the squatter said. "Cecil generally rides Betty,
and I believe Burton's using old Warder just now. But you can have Nan,
if you like."

"Thanks very much," said Wally. "I'll take the shine out of you, young
Norah!"

"I'd like to see you," returned Norah. Monarch might beat Bobs or yes,
perhaps one other horse she knew of, in a small tree-grown paddock; at
the thought of which she smiled happily to herself. But no other horse
on Billabong could see the way Bobs went when he was in earnest.

"Well, that's all settled," Mr. Linton said. "I hope you'll have a good
day--you're bound to have it hot, so I should advise you to get an early
start. If you go as far as the Swamp Paddock, Norah, you might ride
round the cattle there, and see if they're settling down--I put the new
bullocks there, you know."

"All right, Dad, we'll do it. I like having an object for a ride."

"Same here," said Jim sleepily. "Picnics are asinine things!"

"I don't believe you know much about anything--you're three parts
asleep!" said Wally, flinging a cushion at his chum, which Jim caught
thankfully, and, remarking that Norah was uncommonly scraggy, adjusted
under his head. The result was a vigorous upheaval by the indignant
Norah, who declined to be a head-rest for such ingratitude any longer.
At this point Mr. Linton discovered that it was time for supper; and
the boys, tired after their long journey, were not long in saying
goodnight.

Jim came up with Norah, and switched on her light. His eye travelled
round the pretty room.

"I don't know what part of home's HOMIEST," he said--"but I always
reckon your room runs pretty near it! Blest if I know what it will be
like when you're not here, little chap."

Norah rubbed her face against his coat sleeve.

"We don't talk of it," she said. "If we did, I'd--I'd be a horrid
coward, Jimmy--boy, and you wouldn't like me a bit!"

"Wouldn't I?" Jim said. "Well, I can't imagine you a coward, anyhow."
He bent and kissed her. "Good-night, old kiddie."

They set out in good time next morning, for the sun gave promise of a
scorching day.

Billy had the horses ready under the shade of a huge pepper-tree; even
there the flies were bad enough to set Monarch and Bobs fretting with
irritation, while the two stock horses lashed unceasingly with their
tails and stamped in the dust. Nan was a long, handsome brown mare,
with two white feet--an old friend of Wally's, who came and patted her
and let her rub her worried head against his coat. Cecil mounted Betty
and looked on sourly, while Jim walked round Monarch and admired the
big black.

"He ought to carry you like a bird, Dad."

"He does; a bit green yet, but he'll mend of that," his father
answered. "Now, get away, all of you." He put Norah up and watched,
with a silent look of approval, the way Jim handled his impatient
steed, taking him quietly, as one treats a fractious baby, and mounting
gently. Then he stood under the tree to see them ride down the paddock,
valises containing necessaries for the "asinine picnic" strapped on Nan
and Betty's saddles. Norah, as the lady of the party, was exempt from
carrying burdens, and Monarch brooked no load but his rider.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15