The Crooked Stick Or Pollies's Probation Part 5

'I should hate any place,' retorted the girl, in playful defiance, 'if I had to live there all my life. I quite envy my cousin Mr. Devereux, who has only just come. Everything will be so nice and new to him. Cousin Bertram,' she said, advancing and holding out her hand, 'I am charmed to welcome you. Mother and I have been talking of no one else for the last week. Let me introduce Mr. Harold Atherstone, a near neighbour and a great friend of ours. He will be able to give you advice and information beyond all price.'

The two men bowed gravely, as is the manner of freshly acquainted Britons, and looked steadily, if not searchingly, into each other's eyes. The new-comer spoke first.

'I can't tell you how pleased I am with everything--and everybody,' he said, after a slight pause; 'so different from what I had expected. I feel as if I had found a home and relations instead of leaving them for ever. Most happy to meet Mr. Atherstone, and hope to profit by his experience and other people's.'

For the few seconds that pa.s.sed while the new friend and the old one confronted one another the young lady regarded them keenly. Nor was her mind idle. 'As far as appearance goes,' she thought, 'Harold has certainly the best of it. Tall, well-proportioned, with nice brown hair and beard, and those honest grey eyes--what most girls would call a splendid fellow, and so he is. Why am I not fonder of him? Bertram is certainly distinguished looking, but he is only middle-sized and almost plain--dark hair and eyes, rather good these last. I feel disappointed; I don't know why. He smiles nicely--that is, he _could_ if he took the trouble. We must wait, I suppose, till his character develops. I hate waiting. I see mother coming. We had better go in to tea.'

This last observation was the only one audible. The other results of lightning-like apprehension had only been flashed by electric agencies from eye and heart to brain--there registered, doubtless, for future verification or erasure, as circ.u.mstances might determine. Mrs. Devereux had entered. Pollie offered her arm to her cousin, whom she piloted to the dining-room, leaving Mr. Atherstone to follow with her mother.

If the young _emigre_ had been previously astonished at the tone of the household arrangements, he was even more surprised as he surveyed the well-lighted room and marked with much inward satisfaction the well-served repast, the complete and elegant table appointments. The tea equipage at the head of the table, over which Mrs. Devereux presided, determined the character of the repast; but the general effect was that of a sufficiently good dinner, with adjuncts of light wine and the pale ale of Britain, which neither of the young men declined. Both ladies were becomingly dressed in evening costume--Mrs. Devereux plainly and un.o.btrusively, while her daughter had donned for the occasion a sea-green mermaiden triumph of millinery, which subtly suited the delicate tints of her complexion, as also the silken ma.s.ses of her abundant hair.

In the trial of first introductions, unless the key-note be swiftly struck and more than one of the talkers be enthusiastic, the conversation is apt to languish, being chiefly tentative and fragmentary. Now Pollie was eagerly enthusiastic, but her burning impatience on a score of subjects awoke no responsive note in the incurious, undemonstrative kinsman. He was apparently ready to receive information about the customs of a country and people to him so novel, but did not press for it.

He studiously avoided committing himself to opinions, and made but few a.s.sertions. On the other hand, Harold Atherstone declined to pose as a didactic or locally well-informed personage, contenting himself with remarking that those intending pastoralists who possessed common sense acquired information for themselves; to the other division advice was useless and experience vain. This cynical summing up of the Great Australian Question merely caused the stranger to raise his eyebrows, and Pollie to pout and declare that Mr. Atherstone was very disobliging and quite unlike himself that evening.

Upon this it appeared to Mrs. Devereux to interpose an apologetic observation concerning the state of the country, including the roads, live-stock, and pasturage; to which their guest made answer that he had always believed Australia to be a dry and parched region, and had supposed this to be a normal state of matters.

'Oh! we're not quite so bad always as you see us now,' exclaimed Pollie, suppressing a laugh. 'Are we, Harold? You would hardly believe that these dusty plains are covered with gra.s.s as high as a horse's head in a good season, would you now?'

Mr. Devereux did _not_ believe it. But he inclined his head politely and said that it must present a very pleasing appearance.

'Yes, indeed,' continued the girl. 'In the old days the shepherds were provided with horses, because the gra.s.s was so tall that the sheep used to get lost. Men on foot could not see them in it.'

The listener began to feel convinced that the facts related were approaching the border of strange travel and adventure so circ.u.mstantially described by one Lemuel Gulliver, but he manfully withheld utterance of the heresy, merely remarking that they would think that very strange in England.

'I'm afraid you're cautious,' quoth his fair teacher, trying to frown.

'If there's anything I despise, it's caution. It's your duty as a newly arrived person to be wildly astonished at anything, to make quant.i.ties of mistakes, and so gradually to learn the n.o.ble and aristocratic profession of a squatter. If you're going to be unnaturally rational, I shall have no pleasure in teaching you.'

'If _you_ will undertake the task,' replied the neophyte, with a sudden gleam in his dark eyes which for an instant lighted up the somewhat sombre countenance, 'I will promise to commit all the errors you may think necessary.'

'As to that, we'll see,' answered the damsel, with a fine affectation of carelessness. 'I make no promises. We shall have plenty of time--Oh, dear! what quant.i.ties of it we do waste here--to find out all one another's bad qualities. Shall we not, Harold?'

'I have never made any discoveries of the sort, Miss Devereux,' said the young man; 'I can't answer, of course, for the result of your explorations.'

'I couldn't find anything bad in you,' said the girl eagerly, 'if I tried for a century. That's the worst of it. You always put me in the wrong. Doesn't he, mother? There's no satisfaction in quarrelling with him.'

'Why should you quarrel if it comes to that?' queried the matron, with a wistful glance at her child. 'You only differ in opinion occasionally, I observe.'

'Why, because quarrelling is one of the necessities--I should almost say luxuries--of existence,' retorted the young lady. 'What would life be without it? Think of the pleasure of making it up. I should die if I didn't quarrel with somebody now and then.'

'Or talk nonsense occasionally, as your cousin has doubtless by this time observed,' answered her mother. 'I think we may adjourn to the drawing-room.'

The drawing-room in this case meant the verandah, in which luxurious retreat the little party soon ensconced themselves.

'Really,' remarked Devereux, as he lit a cigar and abandoned himself to the inner depths of a Cingalese chair, 'if there was a little motion, I could fancy we were in the Red Sea. Same sky, same stars, same mild temperature, and tobacco. This is very different from the stern realities of colonial life I had pictured to myself.'

'We don't give ourselves out as industrial martyrs,' remarked Atherstone placidly, 'but you will probably find out that bush life is not all beer and skittles.'

'Hope not,' replied Devereux. 'That would be too good to last, obviously. Still I can gather that you have extenuating circ.u.mstances. I certainly never expected to spend my first evening like this.'

Atherstone made no answer, but apparently permitted his pipe reverie to prevail. The other man reclined as if somewhat fatigued, and smoked his cigar, listening indolently to the running conversational comment which his cousin kept up, sometimes with him, sometimes with Atherstone, whose answers were chiefly monosyllabic. The girl's fresh voice falling pleasantly upon his ear, with the lulling effect of rhythmic melody or murmuring stream, Mr. Bertram Devereux was led to the conclusion, by his novel and interesting experience, that an evening might be spent pleasantly, even luxuriously, at this incredible 'distance from town,'

as he himself would have expressed it.

With this conviction, however, and the termination of his cigar came a distinctly soporific proclivity, so that, pleading fatigue and declining further refreshment, the new-comer was fain to betake himself to bed, in which blessed refuge from care and pain, labour and sorrow, he shortly ceased to revolve the very comprehensive subject of colonial experience.

CHAPTER IV

On the morning after his arrival the visitor, making his appearance at an early hour, had a short conversation with Mr. Gateward, whom he found at the horse-yard sending out his men for the day. 'Of course I know nothing of this sort of thing,' he said; 'but I have come here to learn, with a view to investing a few thousands I have in a property, or station, as I think you call it. Now understand clearly that I shall be glad to help in the work of the place, in any way that I am fitted for.

I can ride and drive decently, shoot, walk, keep accounts; in a general way do most things that other people can. Of course I can't pick up the whole drill at once, but I don't want you to spare me. I came to Australia to work, and the sooner I learn the better.'

'All right, sir,' replied the bronzed veteran, 'I'll see what I can do.

If you ride about with me every day, and keep your eyes open, you'll pick up as much in six months as most of the people know that own stations. It's a bad year now, and we're all in the doldrums, as the sailors say. But it's not going to be that way always. The wind'll change or the rain'll come, and then we'll be able to show you what Corindah looks like in a good season.'

'Then we understand each other. I'll take my orders from you, but, of course, from no one else--('Not likely,' interjected Mr. Gateward, looking at the steady eye and short, proud upper lip of the speaker)--'and early or late, wet or dry (if it ever _is_ wet here), hot or cold, you'll find me ready and willing. Give me a couple of good hacks, and I'll soon have an idea of how you carry on the war.'

'I'm dashed sure you will, sir, and I shall be proud to help a gentleman like you to a knowledge of things, that's willing to learn, and not too proud to take a hint.'

'Quite so. I suppose you remember my cousin Brian? I was very young when he left home, but I always heard that he was a hard man to beat at anything he chose to go in for.'

'He was as fine a man as ever wore shoe-leather,' said the overseer.

'Everybody respected him in these parts, and he was that jolly and kind in his ways, n.o.body could help liking him. If he hadn't been cut off in his prime by that infernal Doctor--the cattle-duffing, horse-stealing hound--he'd have been one of the richest men in the district this very minute.'

'He was shot by a highway robber?' inquired Devereux; 'what you call a bushranger in Australia, don't you?'

'Well, there are bushrangers and bushrangers,' said the overseer. 'This chap, the Doctor, hadn't regularly took to the bush, as one might say, though he was worse than many as did. He belonged to a mob of cattle-stealers that used to duff cattle in the back country, and pa.s.s them over to Queensland. Well, Mr. Tracknell, one of the squatters in the back blocks, began to run 'em pretty close, and put the police on 'em. They heard he was to be in the coach from Orange on a certain day, and made it right to stick it up and give him a lesson.'

'What's sticking up?'

'Well, sir, by what one hears and reads, it is what used to be called "stopping" on the Queen's highway in England.'

'Then they had no grudge against Brian Devereux?'

'Not a bit in the world. He was known far and wide as a free-handed gentleman. Any one was welcome to stop at Corindah in his time, and no poor man ever went away hungry. The man the Doctor and Bill Bond wanted wasn't in the coach as it happened. He'd got wind of it and cleared. But they heard there was a gentleman with a big beard going down the country, and made sure it was him. When they came up and saw their mistake, they'd have rode off again, only the Captain was that hot-tempered and angry at their stopping him, that he fired on them, and nearly collared the lot. They returned it, and rode off as well as they could, and never knew till days after that they had hit him. Them as told me said the Doctor was devilish sorry for it, and that he was the last man in the district they'd have hurt.'

'What became of the Doctor, as you call him?'

'Well, sir, he's in the back country somewhere in Queensland yet, I believe. He served a sentence for horse-stealing of seven years; but he's wanted again, and there's a warrant out for him. He's a desperate man now, and I wouldn't be sure he won't do something that'll be talked about yet before his end comes.'

'It's to be hoped there'll be a rope round his neck on that day,' said Bertram; 'scoundrels of that kind should be trapped or poisoned like vermin.'

'Well, sir, the Doctor's no chop, but there's worse than Bill Bond, if you'll believe me. The only thing is, now he's hunted from pillar to post so, and he ain't got half a chance to repent if he wanted ever so much, I'm afraid he'll do something out of the way bad yet.'

The autumnal season, with calm sun-gilded days, cool starlight, unclouded nights, and mornings fresh and exhilarating, as if newly ordered from Paradise, came gradually to an end. Lovely, pa.s.sing fair, as weather in the abstract; but dry, dry, always dry, and as such lamentable and injurious. Then winter made believe to arrive with the first week in June. But how could it be winter, Bertram thought, when the skies were still cloudless and untroubled, the mid-day warm, the plains dusty, the air soft, the river low; when the flowers in the garden bloomed and budded as usual; when no leaf fell from the forest; when, save the great acacias in the backyard and the white cedars in the garden, all the trees at Corindah were green and full-foliaged? The chief difference was that the nights were longer, cooler. There were sharp frosts from time to time; and when Bertram arose early in the morning, according to his wont, all things were covered with an icy mantle. On one occasion, when he met Mr. Gateward coming in from a long night ride, his abundant beard was frozen stiff as a stalact.i.te.