Books: Mates at Billabong

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

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Then things became merry, and even Cecil warmed at the gifts on his
plate, while the boys were exclaiming in delight over Norah's knitting,
and Wally was shaking hands with Mr. Linton and looking
half-shamefacedly at the plain gold sleeve links from him and the
silver watch chain from Jim; and Mr. Linton's face was alight with
pleasure at the waistcoat Norah had made for him, and the little oak
bookshelf for his bedside that was the work of Jim's spare hours.
Finally all the bundles were unwrapped, and there was a lull, though
Norah's eyes were still dancing, and she exchanged glances with her
father.

Jim spoke.

"There's a string under my plate," said he, faintly puzzled. "At least,
there's one end."

"Strings always have two ends," said Wally, wisely. "Where's the
other?"

"I'm blessed if I know," said Jim. "It goes down to the floor."

Wally came round, investigating.

"Seems to me it goes out of the window," he said. "Guess you'd better
follow it, Jimmy."

Jim looked round, a little doubtful. Then he saw Norah's face, and knew
that there was something he did not understand. He laughed a little.

"Some one pulling my leg?" he asked, good-humouredly. "Oh, well, I'll
chase it."

The string went somewhere--that was evident. Outside it was at the
height of Jim's hand, and ran along the wall, so that it was easy to
follow. They trooped after him as he went along, Norah completely
unable to walk steadily, but progressing principally on one foot, while
David Linton's eyes were twinkling. The chase was not a long one; the
string suddenly cut across to the door in the high fence dividing the
front and back gardens, and there disappeared.

"What next?" said Jim.

"If it was me," said Wally, with a fine disregard of grammar, "I should
open the door."

"Good for you, Wally," grinned Jim. "Here goes!" He flung the door
open, and then stood as if rooted to the spot.

The string went on. It ended, however, just through the door, where its
end was spliced to a halter, held by black Billy, whose smile disclosed
every tooth in his head. Fidgeting in the halter was a big bay horse,
showing all Monarch's quality, and all his good looks; a show ring
horse, picked by a keen judge, and built for speed as well as strength.
He looked at Jim with a kind eye, set well in his beautiful head. There
was no flaw in him; from his heels to his fine, straight forelock he
was perfection.

Jim had no words. He did not need to be told anything--Norah's face had
been enough; but he could not speak. He took refuge with the big bay,
moving forward and putting out a hand, to which the horse responded
instantly, rubbing his head against him in friendly fashion. Then,
across the arched neck, Jim's eyes met his father's, and the colour
flooded into his brown face.

"Well, old son--will he do?"

"Do!" said Jim, weakly. "Dad!--by Jove, I--I--" He stopped helplessly;
then his hand went out and took his father's in a grip that made David
Linton realize that this big son of his was nearly a man.

"Oh, Jimmy, I'm so glad--and isn't he lovely?"

"Why, he's perfect," Jim said, stepping back and running his eye over
his Christmas box. "My word, Dad, he'll jump!"

"Yes, he'll jump all right," said David Linton. "Gallop, too, I should
say."

"Plenty!" said Billy, with unexpected emphasis, whereat every one
laughed.

"Billy and Norah have had this little joke plotted for some time," Mr.
Linton said--"and the experiences they have undergone in keeping strings
and steed out of your way this morning have, I believe, whitened the
hair of both!"

Jim looked gratefully round.

"You're all bricks," he said. "Has he got a name, Dad?"

"'A tearin' foine wan,' Murty says," responded his father; "since it's
Irish: Garryowen, unless you'd like to change it."

"Not me!" said Jim. "I like it." He looked round as the sound of the
gong came across the garden. "I say, don't mind me," he said--"go into
breakfast. I don't want any this morning." His eye went back to the
bay.

"Rubbish!" said his father--"he'll be alive after breakfast! Come
along," and reluctantly Jim saw Billy lead his horse away to the
stable. He discovered, however, on reaching the breakfast room, that he
was remarkably hungry, and distinguished himself greatly with his knife
and fork.

Afterwards it was necessary to try the bay's paces without delay, and
they all watched Jim take him round the home paddock. Garryowen moved
beautifully; and when Jim finally put him at the highest part of the
old log fence, and brought him back again, he flew it with a foot to
spare. The boy's face was aglow as he rode up.

"Well, he's perfect!" he said. "I never was on such a horse." He came
close to his father. "Dad," he said in a low tone--"are you sure you
wouldn't like him instead of Monarch? He's far more finished."

"Not for anything, thanks, old chap--I prefer my pupil," said his
father, his look answering more than his words. "You see he never bucks
with me, Jim!"

Jim laughed, dismounting. "Like to try him, Cecil?"

"Thanks," said Cecil, scrambling up and setting off down the paddock,
while Jim watched him and writhed to think of possible damage to his
horse's back and mouth. Billy, who was near, said reflectively, "Plenty
bump!" and Murty O'Toole roundly rebuked Jim for "puttin' up an insult
like that on a good horse!" They breathed more freely when Cecil came
back, albeit the way in which he sawed at the bay's mouth was
calculated to strike woe to the heart of any owner. Then Wally tried
Garryowen, and finally Norah, having flown to the house for a riding
skirt, had a ride also, and sailed over the log fence in a manner fully
equal to Jim's. She came back charged with high compliment.

"He's nearly as good as Bobs, Jim!"

"Bobs!" said Jim, loftily. "We don't compare ponies with horses, my
child!"

"Then he's not to be compared with Bobs!" Norah retorted sturdily, and,
the laugh being on her side, retired quickly to dress for dinner.

Dinner was typical of Billabong, and an Australian Christmas--one with
the thermometer striving to reach the hundred mark. Everything was
cold, from the mammoth turkey, with which Mr. Linton wrestled, to the
iced peaches that topped off what the boys declared "a corking feed."
There was plum pudding, certainly, but it was cold, too. Wally found in
his piece no fewer than four buttons; and, deeply aggrieved, went
afterwards to remonstrate with Mrs. Brown, who was amazed, declaring
she had put in but one, which to her certain knowledge had fallen to
the unhappy lot of Sarah. Further inquiries revealed the fact that Jim
had come to the table well supplied with buttons, with which he had
contrived to enrich Wally's portion as it travelled past him--which led
to a battle on the lawn, until both combatants, too well fed and weak
with mirth to fight, collapsed, and slept peacefully under a pine tree.

Later on the horses were saddled, and every one rode out to the river,
where Brownie and the maids had already been driven by Fred Anderson,
and where they picnicked for tea. Afterwards they lay on the soft
grass, with the water murmuring past them, and Mr. Linton told them
stories--for Christmas was ever, and will ever be, the time for stories.
Simple, straightforward tales, like the man himself: old Christmases
overseas, and others in many parts of Australia--some that brought a
sadder note into the speaker's voice, and made Norah draw herself along
the grass until she came within touch of his hand. Words were never
really needed between them--being mates.

So they stayed until the golden western sky had grown rose colour, and
the rose glow faded into night, that brought with it a little cool
breeze. Then the horses were saddled, and they rode home by the longest
possible way, singing every imaginable chorus, from Good Old Jeff to
the latest medley of pantomime ditties, and ending with a wild scurry
across the paddock home. They all trooped into the house, waking its
quietness to youth and laughter.

But David Linton called to Norah.

"Come on," he said, "we'll finish up with the real Christmas songs."

So they all gathered round the piano while Norah played, and joined in
the old Christmas hymns and carols--none the less hearty in that they
sang of frost and snow with all around them the yellowing plain, dried
up by the scorching sun, and, beyond that, the unbroken line of the
little trodden Bush. The young voices rang out cheerily, David Linton
listening in his armchair, his hand over his eyes.

Norah was in bed when her father looked in, in passing, to say
good-night. She put up her face to him sleepily.

"It's been a beautiful Christmas, Daddy dear!" she said.

CHAPTER XI

"LO, THE POOR INDIAN!"

I mind the time when first I came
A stranger to the land.
HENRY LAWSON.

The house was unusually quiet. It was New Year's Day, and every man on
the place, and most of the maids, had gone off to a bush race meeting,
ten miles away. Even Mrs. Brown had allowed herself to be persuaded to
go and, arrayed in her best silk gown, had climbed laboriously into the
high double buggy, driven by Dave Boone, and departed, waving to Norah
a stout reticule that looked, Wally said, as though it contained
sausages! Only Mary, the housemaid, remained. Mary was a prim soul, and
did not care for race meetings. She had remarked that she would stay at
home and "crocher"!

Mr. Linton and the boys had ridden away after lunch. A valuable bull
had slipped down the side of a steep gully and injured himself, and
bush surgery was required. David Linton was rather notable in this
direction, and he had seen to it that Jim had had a thorough course of
veterinary training in Melbourne. Together they made, the squatter
remarked, a very respectable firm of practitioners! Cecil and Wally
were ready to perform unskilled labour as required, and it was quite
possible that their help might be needed, since no men were available.
So the picnic planned for the afternoon had had to be abandoned, and
Norah was left somewhat desolate, since she could not take part in the
"relief expedition."

"Hard on you, old girl," Jim had said; "but it can't be helped."

"No, of course it can't," Norah replied. She was well trained in the
emergencies of the country, and would probably have been perfectly
cheerful had this particular one only been something that would not
have excluded her. As it was, however, it was certainly disappointing,
and she felt somewhat "at a loose end" as she watched the four ride
off. There seemed nothing for her to do. It was beyond doubt that being
a girl had its drawbacks.

Within, the silence of the house was depressing, and the rooms seemed
much too large. Norah saw to one or two odd jobs, fed some chickens,
talked for a while to Fudge, the parrot, who was a companionable bird,
with a great flow of eloquence on occasions, wrote a couple of
letters--always a laborious proceeding for the maid of the bush--and
finally arrived at the decision that there was nothing to do. In the
kitchen Mary sat and "crochered" placidly at a fearful and wonderful
set of table mats. Norah watched her for a while, with a great scorn
for the gentle art that could produce such monstrosities. Then she
practised for half an hour, and at length, taking a book, sauntered off
to read by the creek.

Meanwhile Mary worked on contentedly, unconscious of outer things,
dreaming, perhaps, such dreams as may come to any one who makes
crocheted table mats of green and yellow. Now and then she rose to
replenish the fire, returning to her needle in the far-away corner of
the great kitchen, where Mrs. Brown's cane armchair always stood. She
glanced up in surprise after a while, when a shadow fell across the
doorway. Then, for Mary was a girl with "nerves," she jumped up with a
little scream.

An Indian hawker stood there--a big, black-bearded fellow, in dusty
clothes that had once been white, and on his head a turban of faded
pink. His heavy pack hung from his shoulder, but as the girl looked, he
slipped it to the ground, and stood erect, with a grunt of relief. Then
he grinned faintly at Mary, who had promptly put the table between
them, and asked the hawker's universal question:

"Anything to-day, Meesis?"

The Hindu hawker is still a figure to be met frequently in the
Bush--where he is, indeed, something of an institution. "Remote from
towns he runs" a race that no poetical licence can stretch to complete
the quotation by calling "godly." He carries a queer mixture of goods--a
kind of condensed bazaar-stall from his native land, with silks and
cottons, soaps, scents, boot laces and cheap jewellery, all packed into
a marvellously small space; and so he tramps his way through Australia.
No life can be lonelier. His stock of English is generally barely
enough to enable him to complete his deals; the free and independent
Australian regards him as "a nigger," and despises him accordingly;
while the Hindu, in his turn, has in his inmost soul a scorn far deeper
for his scorners--the pride of tradition and of caste. It is the caste
that keeps him rigidly to himself, since, as a rule, he can touch no
food that others have handled. He sits apart, over his own tiny fire,
baking his unappetising little cakes; and in many cases even the shadow
of a passer-by falling across his cookery is held to defile it beyond
possibility of his eating it. As a rule he has but one idea in life--to
make enough money to carry him back to end his days in comfort by the
waters of the Ganges.

There are certain well recognized hawkers in many districts--men who
have kept for a long time to a particular beat, and may be regarded as
fairly regular, and likely to turn up at each place at their route
three or four times a year. Such men have generally arrived at the
dignity of a pack-horse--no unmixed benefit in the eyes of people
driving, since most of the country horses are reduced to frenzy by the
sight of the lean screw with his immense white pack--the hawker is
merciless to his horse--led by the "black" man in flapping clothes and
gay turban. Still the regular hawkers are a more respectable class of
men, and their visits are often eagerly welcomed by the housewife in
the lonely country, many miles from a township, who finds herself
confronted with such problems as the necessity for lacing Johnny's
Sunday boots with strips of green hide, or the more serious one of a
dearth of trouser-buttons for his garments.

It is the casual hawker who is looked on with disfavour, and strikes
terror to the heart of many women. He has very frequently no money and
less principle; and being without reputation to sustain in the
district, is careless of his doings along a route that he probably does
not intend to visit again. He knows perfectly well that women and
children are afraid of him, and as a rule is very willing to work upon
that fear--though the sight of a man, or of a dog with character, is
sufficient to make him the most servile of his race. But where he meets
a lonely woman he is a very apparition of terror.

There was one hawker who came regularly to Billabong; a cheery old
fellow, well known and respected, whose caste was not strict enough to
prevent his refusing the station hospitality, and whose appearance was
always welcome. He had been coming so long that he knew them all well,
and took an almost affectionate interest in Jim and Norah, always
bringing some little gift for the latter. The men liked him, for he had
been known to "turn to" and work at a bush fire "as hearty as if he
weren't a fat little image av a haythen," said Murty O'Toole; Norah was
always delighted when old Ram Das came up the track, his unwieldy body
on two amazingly lean legs. Even Mary would not have been scared at his
appearance.

But this was not Ram Das--this Indian who stood looking at her with that
queer little half-smile, so different from the old man's wide and
cheerful grin. It was a strange man, and a terrible one in Mary's
sight. She gaped at him feebly across the table, and he watched her
with keen, calculating eyes. Presently he spoke again, this time a
little impatiently.

"You ask-a meesis annything to-day?"

"Nothin' to-day," said Mary, quickly and nervously.

"You ask-a meesis."

"She don't want anything," the girl quavered.

"You ask-a."

"I tell you she don't want anything--there ain't any missis," Mary said.
He looked at her unbelievingly, and broke into a speech of broken
English that was quite unintelligible to the frightened girl behind the
table. Then, as she did not answer him, he came a few steps nearer.

It was more than enough for Mary. She gave a terrified shriek and ran
for the nearest cover--the half-open door of the back kitchen behind
her. She banged it violently as she dashed through. There was no lock
on the door, so she could not stay there--but the window stood open, and
Mary went through it with all the nimbleness of fear. She came out into
the yard where the way lay clear to the house; and across the space
went Mary, cometwise, a vision of terror and flying cap strings, each
moment expecting to hear pursuing feet. Puck, the Irish terrier,
sleeping peacefully on the front verandah, leapt to his feet at the
sudden bang of the back door, and came dashing through the house in
search of the cause. Mary, half sobbing, welcomed him with fervour.

"Good dog, Puck!" she said. She reconnoitred through the nearest
window.

The Indian had come out of the kitchen, and now stood on the back
verandah, his dark face working. He looked uncertainly about him. Then
the back door opened a few inches--just so far that an enthusiastic
Irish terrier could squeeze through--and Mary's voice came.

"Good dog, Puck!--sool 'im!"

The door banged again, and the heavy lock shot home. Mary flew back to
the window, shutting and locking it frantically. She watched.

Puck wasted no time. He dashed at the hawker, with every fighting
instinct aroused, and the Hindu leaped back quickly, seizing with one
hand a broom that leaned against the wall. He met the terrier's
onslaught with a savage blow that sent the little dog head over heels
yards away. Puck picked himself up and came again like a whirlwind.
Then Mary screamed again, for the Hindu dropped the broom, and
something flashed in the sunlight--a long knife that came swiftly from
some hiding place in his voluminous draperies. He crouched to meet the
dog, his eyes gleaming, his lips drawn back from his teeth.

Puck was no fool. He arrested himself almost in midair, and planted
himself just out of the hawker's reach, his whole enraged little body a
vision of defiance, and barked madly. The Indian moved backwards,
uttering a flood of furious speech, while for each step that he moved
the terrier advanced another. Then Mary's heart gave a sudden leap; for
the hand that held the knife suddenly went behind him as he reached for
his pack and swung it to his shoulder. Puck was nearly upon him in the
moment that the knife no longer menaced, but the Hindu was quick; and
again the little dog drew back, rending the air with his barking.
Slowly the man backed off the verandah and along the path to the yard
gate, Puck following every step, loathing with all his fury that unfair
advantage of gleaming steel that kept him from his enemy. The Hindu
backed through the gate, and slammed it in the terrier's face, spitting
a volley of angry words as he went. Mary flung the window open and
called her protector anxiously, lest he should find some means of exit
and leave her alone; and Puck came back a few steps, turning again to
bark at his retreating foe. The tall form in the dusty clothes went
slowly down the track. Mary watched him out of sight. Then she fled to
her own room, locked herself in securely, and went, very properly, into
hysterics.

Meanwhile, at the creek, Norah was nodding sleepily over her book. It
was hot, and naturally a lazy day; everything seemed sleepy, from the
cows lying about under the willows on the banks to the bees droning
overhead. Tait, near her, was snoring gently. Even the water below
seemed to be rippling more lazily than usual; the splash of a leaping
fish made an unusual stir in the stillness. Moreover, her book was not
calculated to keep her awake. It was poetry, and Norah's soul did not
incline naturally to poetry, unless it were one of Gordon's stirring
rhymes, or something equally Australian in character. This was quite
different, but it had been Cecil's Christmas gift, and it had seemed to
Norah that politeness required her to study it.

"It's the rummiest stuff!" said the Bush damsel, hopelessly. She turned
to the cover, a dainty thing of pale blue and gold. "William Morris?
Didn't we have a stockman once called Bill Morris? But I'm pretty
certain he never wrote this. The name's the same, though!" thought
Norah, uncertainly. She turned back, and read anew, painstakingly:

No meat did ever pass my lips
Those days. (Alas! the sunlight slips
From off the gilded parclose dips,
And night comes on apace.)

"Then I'm positive it wasn't our Bill Morris, 'cause I never saw a
stockman who was a vegetarian. But what's a parclose? I'll have to ask
Cecil; but then he'll think me such a duffer not to know, and he'll be
so awfully patronizing. But what on earth does it all mean?"

She closed the book in despair, let her eyelids droop, and nodded a
little, while the book in its blue and gold cover slipped from her knee
to the grass. It was much easier to go to sleep than to read William
Morris. What a long time Dad and the boys were, doctoring Derrimut! It
was certainly dull.

A quick bark from Tait startled her. The collie had jumped up, and was
bristling with wrath at an unusual spectacle coming through the trees
towards her--a tall man, with a face of dusky bronze, surmounted by a
pink turban. His face was working angrily, and he muttered as he
walked, slowly, as if the pack on his shoulder were heavy. When Tait
barked he started for a moment, but then came on steadily--a collie is
rarely as formidable as an Irish terrier.

Norah paled a little. She was not timid, but no Australian girl takes
naturally to an encounter with a Hindu and there was no doubt that this
man was in a very bad temper. The place was lonely, too, and out of
sight of the house, even if she had not been painfully conscious that
there was not a man on the place should she need help. Still, there was
nothing to be gained by running. She backed against the tree, keeping
one hand on Tait's collar as the man came up.

"What do you want?"

He stopped, and the pack slipped to the grass. Then he broke into a
flood of rapid speech in his own tongue, gesticulating violently;
occasionally indicating the house with a sweep of his hand in that
direction. As he talked he worked himself up to further wrath--his voice
rose almost to a shout sometimes, and his face was not pleasant to see.
Once or twice he held his left hand out, and Norah saw that it was
bandaged.

For a minute or two she was badly frightened. Then, watching him, she
suddenly came to the conclusion that she had nothing to fear--that he
was telling her something he wanted her to know. She listened, trying
hard to catch some word in the flood of fluent foreign speech, and
twice she thought she made out the name of Ram Das. Then he finished
abruptly with almost the one word of Hindustani she knew, since it was
one the old hawker had taught her. "SUMJA," ("Do you understand?" he
hurled at her.

Norah shook her head.

"No, I don't 'SUMJA,'" she said: but her tone was friendly, and some of
the anger melted from the Indian's face, and was succeeded by a quick
relief. "Can't you speak English? You know Ram Das--Ram Das?" she
repeated, hoping that the name might convey something to him. To her
immense relief, the effect was instantaneous.

"Know Ram Das," said the man, struggling for words. "Him--him." He swept
the horizon vaguely with his hand.

"I know Ram Das," Norah put in. "Him good man."

The Hindu nodded violently. His face was natural again, and suddenly he
smiled at her. "You a meesis?" he asked. "Ram Das say l'il meesis."

"I'm little meesis," Norah said promptly. It was the old man's title
for her. "Did Ram Das send you?"

"Him send me," said the man, with evident pleasure in finding the word.
He struggled again for English, but finally gave it up, and held out
his left hand to her silently.

"Why, you're hurt!" Norah said. "Is that why Ram Das sent you?"

He nodded again, and began to unroll the long strip of cotton stuff
round his hand and wrist. It took a long time, and at last he had to go
down to the water and bathe the stiffened rag before it would come
away. Then he came back to Norah and held it out again--a long, hideous
gash right up the wrist, torn and swollen and inflamed.

"Oh!" said Norah, drawing back a pace, instinctively. "You poor fellow!
How did you do it?"

"Barb wire," said the Indian, simply. "Three days. Him bad. Ram Das,
him say you help." With this stupendous effort of eloquence he became
speechless again, still holding the torn wrist out to her.

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