CHAPTER IX.

NARRUNG HOMESTEAD.

"Merle! Where are you?"

"Here," said a sulky voice.

"Make haste, then," said her father. "I want you."

Merle emerged from the shrubbery slowly. The expression on her face was not inviting, but her father was too preoccupied to notice it.

"Look after Dick, will you?" he said. "A man is sick in one of the huts in the far paddocks, and Mr. Lester is going with me to have a look at him. Show Dick round a bit and keep him entertained."

Merle scowled.

"Can't Bobby?" she asked.

Her father stared at her.

"You can't leave a boy of Dick's age to a kid like Bobby," he said. "Whatever is the matter with you? One would think you would be only too glad of the chance of a mate. Behave yourself, and remember the boy is our guest."

A black boy called from the gate.

"Horses ready, boss!"

"All right. Now, mind what I told you, Merle." He strode away across the garden.

Merle stood watching his retreating form, her heart seething with rebellion. She had not wanted Dick; she did not like him. Why should she be saddled with his entertainment? She had kept out of the way the night before, and her absence had not been noticed in the excitement of their arrival. To-day she had planned to climb up a favourite tree with a book and remain there until they were all out--she was sure her father meant to take them on a tour of the place. To have this cheerful plan frustrated, and to find herself responsible for Dick, was a heavy blow. She made her way inside, her scowl darker than ever.

Dick was with his mother, watching Mrs. Warner ordering her household for the day. Her cook was a middle-aged Scotchwoman, whose husband was storekeeper to the station; but all her other maids were black gins, and, with a native, nothing can be indefinite--orders have to be repeated daily, supplies doled out as they are needed, and only constant watchfulness ensures any comfort. She was at the moment interviewing the laundress, a big lubra, whose scanty attire was already soaked from splashing in the tubs.

"But I gave you plenty soap last night, Julia."

Julia rolled her great eyes wildly.

"Not this pfeller, missis. Mine thinkit that very little picaninny soap you bin gib. All bin tumble down (die) in water."

"Havers!" broke in Mrs. Macleay, the housekeeper briskly. "'Twas the usual quantity, and the wash no bigger than usual. Julia, you bin give soap to that feller Ben."

"No, no, missis, Julia no gib Ben good pfeller soap. That Ben no good." Julia's air of virtuous surprise and indignation was perfect.

Mrs. Warner pondered, and then turned to a little girl.

"Mary, you go and bring me Julia's bag."

Julia heard the order unmoved--a circumstance that did not escape Mrs. Macleay's keen eye. She slipped away, as the little girl, returning with the lubra's woven grass bag, tipped the contents out on the floor for Mrs. Warner's inspection. There were a few lumps of sugar, half a stick of coarse tobacco, some string, a half-eaten chop, a cup handle and a strip of bright print. But no soap.

"I bin tell you truth, missis," said Julia smugly. "Now, you gib it more soap?"

Mrs. Warner hesitated. Then came the whisk of Mrs. Macleay's starched skirt, and a large and capable hand deposited part of a bar of yellow soap on the table before her.

"You bin no good, Julia," said Mrs. Macleay severely. "Carefully planted under a tub of clothes, ma'am. I know Julia."

Julia's eyes rolled anew, and her lips parted in a childlike grin.

"I bin put 'em there by mistake," she said airily. "Mine thinkit you very good woman, Missis Mac."

"I don't doubt it," said the Scotswoman dourly. "Suppose you get on with the washing, Julia?"

Julia grasped the soap and disappeared, while Mrs. Warner turned to her guest.

"Julia's husband is very fond of soap."

"Rather unusual in a black fellow, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Lester, laughing.

"Quite. He eats it."

"Oh," said Mrs. Lester blankly.

Mrs. Warner was attending to another case. A tall young black answered to a call of "Jacky," and stood before her, looking sheepish.

"Jacky," said Mrs. Warner sternly, "I bin give you Boss's washing to carry down to Julia, and one fellow pair of trousers gone. You tell me what you do with 'em."

"Mine gibit all that pfeller clothes to Julia, missis," said Jacky stolidly. "Mine thinkit she steal 'em that pfeller t'ouser for Ben."

Julia suddenly reappeared, with the briskness of a pantomime artist.

"Nebber mine see that white pfeller t'ouser," she screamed angrily. "I good lubra--nebber steal!" She paused and added a convincing proof. "Boss's t'ouser no good for Ben--he too big!"

"And that's true," said Mrs. Macleay. "What's more, ma'am, you sent four pairs down by Jacky and I counted them over to Julia, and there was only three."

"What you done with 'em, Jacky?" Mrs. Warner asked severely.

"Mine gibit all them things to Julia," reiterated Jacky. "She no good."

Mrs. Warner knitted her brows.

"You not telling me truth, Jacky," she said. "I send you to boss unless you do."

"Mine thinkit always tell truth," said Jacky. "That pfeller God him kill Jacky if not tell truth. Jacky very good black pfeller." He beamed on his mistress in a childlike fashion.

A tall man strode into the kitchen verandah--a stockman, so bronzed that he might almost have been taken for a native. He carried in his hand a begrimed and crumpled pair of flannel trousers.

"Morning, missus!" he said. "Glad you've got that chap on the carpet." He nodded wrathfully at Jacky, who suddenly assumed the air of a hurt baby. "I seen him last night doin' the grand in these down at the camp--reckon he got lost if he tried to put 'em on, so he was wearin' 'em tied round his dirty neck! I wasn't able to stop just then--I was after a bullock--but I turned out his hut this mornin' and got 'em from his gin. Good pants, too. They'll take a bit of washin' now."

"I go wash 'em, missis," said Julia, in a voice of oil. "I tell you that pfeller Jacky no good." She seized the trousers and departed.

"Jacky!" said Mrs. Warner sternly.

Jacky rolled his eyes and said nothing. Possibly from his point of view, there was nothing to say.

"No baccy for you this week," said his mistress. "I tell boss, too; very like he send you back alonga camp."

"No, missis--I not go back alonga camp!" cried Jacky. "I be good boy!"

"Then you not steal again! I give you one chance," said Mrs. Warner. "Now you go work in garden."

Jacky withdrew, crestfallen, and Mrs. Warner proceeded to deal with each native in turn, giving instructions, seeing, where necessary, to the weighing out of supplies; and, so far as possible, guarding against any chances of household matters going wrong.

"Of course, they do go wrong," she remarked, as the last lubra left the verandah. "No matter how careful one may be there is always to be taken into consideration the airy nature of the black. You can't count on them; however contented and docile they may sometimes seem, they will always yield to the merest impulse--to steal anything that takes their fancy, to drop any job they may be at, generally at the most inconvenient moment, or to clear out altogether to the tribe. I have known my best housemaid leave a room half-scrubbed, bucket and brush in the middle of the floor, and be found up to her armpits in the lagoon looking for lily pods!"

"It must lend great variety to housekeeping," said Mrs. Lester, laughing.

"It does. Of course, it's funny enough--one is always laughing at them--but it can be rather awful as well. I had some bad times before I got Mrs. Macleay as second in command." Her eye fell on her daughter. "Oh, there you are, Merle. Take Dick round the place--Mrs. Lester and I are having a morning indoors."

"All right," said Merle.

"Thanks," said Dick.

They looked at each other like two distrustful puppies, and moved off together.

"I say," said Dick, "don't come if it bothers you. I can easy poke round by myself."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said his entertainer--with a sudden determination that he should do no such thing.

Conversation flagged after that. They went down a wide path, bordered with flowering shrubs, which opened out into a broad, sanded yard behind the kitchen. Here were a series of small buildings, made fly-proof with wire sides, and kept cool by thick roofs projecting so far that they almost formed verandahs. They stood in the shadow of some huge trees.

"What are all these for?" Dick asked.

"Oh, that's the meat house, and that's the dairy, and that's the bacon-curing house. They make salt beef and corned beef there too. That new place is for a 'frigerator thing daddy's just bought."

Dick peeped in through the wire. Rows of hams and sides of bacon hung from whitewashed beams, and there were great tubs and vats where, presumably, many a good bullock found a last resting place in brine. At one end was a kind of table with a ledge all round, where the salting of the meat was done. The floor was cemented; so was that of the dairy, where stood a separator, a churn and a complicated apparatus for cooling milk. Cream and milk, in enamelled buckets, stood on big slate slabs, and all the woodwork was scrubbed to a snowy whiteness.

"We can keep water dripping all round the dairy in the summer, and running over the floor," Merle said proudly. "Daddy fixed it. Could your father do that?"

"I don't know--don't suppose he ever tried," answered Dick, much impressed. "How d'you get the water!"

"It's all pumped up from the big dam by a windmill. When it's cooled the dairy, it runs away down that little channel to the vegetable garden."

"That's a jolly good idea," said Dick. "I say, don't the blacks ever try to steal the meat? They could break that light wire as easy as wink."

"They did try once, but daddy was all ready for them--he had some big fireworks, and he let them off just as they were coming on a dark night. You ought to have seen them run!" And for the first time Merle permitted herself to smile. "Now they say, 'Big pfeller debbil-debbil live here,' and none of them would go within a hundred yards of the meat-house after dark."

Dick's eyes danced.

"My word. I wish I'd been here!" he exclaimed.

"Do you?" said Merle coldly--and Dick felt as if he had suddenly received a ducking with icy water. "Oh, well, these old houses aren't up to much--we'll go and see the stables." And Dick followed meekly, not because he felt meek, but because he did not know what else to do. He was conscious of a wholly unchivalrous desire to smack her.

But the stables were a spot so near to the heart of each that it was impossible to keep up coldness. They were large and roomy, with great lofts full of sweet-smelling hay, where the sunlight flickered in dusty shafts from cracks in the walls. There were big loose boxes and comfortable stalls, and a large harness-room, where the saddles and bridles were so beautifully kept that Dick lingered lovingly over them, feeling the supple, glossy leather with all a country boy's delight. Merle pointed out her own saddle proudly--a splendid little English hunting model.

"I s'pose you'll use one of the stock saddles when you go out," she said carelessly. "Can you ride?"

Dick's heart swelled within him, but he kept his temper.

"Oh, a little," he said. He could not remember any time that he had not ridden; but there was no need to say so to this small, scornful person with the tilted nose. Anyway, he reflected, she knew that he lived on a station; she was probably only trying to get a rise out of him. School had taught him not to rise to such easy baits.

"Dad has lots of quiet old horses you could try," went on Merle.

"Thanks," replied her guest. "You don't feel anxious on a quiet horse, do you?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I never ride 'em." And this time the desire to smack her was so strong that Dick was obliged to take down a bridle and examine it to keep his hands out of harm's way.

They found O'Mara, the head groom, busy in a yard behind the stables, helping a black boy to bathe the hock of a fine bay mare that had managed to get entangled with some barbed wire. The mare was young and half-broken, and could understand neither her throbbing leg nor the hands that were dealing with it; and the boy was stupid and rough, with the result that she was plunging and kicking violently, and resisting every attempt to touch the injured part. O'Mara was rapidly losing patience.

"Ye have no more gumption than a cow," he told the boy angrily. "Take her aisy, will ye? Remember her laig is sore, an' don't touch it as if ye were scrubbin' a brick floor." The boy dabbed at the swollen hock, and the mare kicked furiously and danced away on three legs and O'Mara uttered pungent comments. "That you, Miss Merle? Take care, now, an' keep back; that one'd kick the eye out of a mosquito, she's that bothered with this black omadhaun. 'Tis all I wish the boss hadn't gone before he helped me to do her; this boy's no good either to hould her or to bathe her. Whisht now, my beauty--no one's going to hurt you at all."

"Can I hold her?" Dick asked.

"Better keep back, sir. She's gentle enough, only she don't understand why she's hurt."

"Poor old girl!" said Dick gently. He went up to the mare's head, all his horse-loving soul eager to touch her. The wild eyes softened under his quiet hand. He stroked her nose, and then slid his fingers up quietly, rubbing her neck and talking to her under his breath. It was months since he had handled a horse, except the forbidden luxury of the milkman's pony. The very feel of the rippling muscles under the satin skin of her neck was a delight to him. He put his cheek against hers and the mare stopped trembling and muzzled against him. Dick looked up at O'Mara half shyly.

"Isn't she a beauty?" he said. "Seems a shame to hurt her."

"We'll try not to," said O'Mara happily. "Sure, 'tis yourself has the way with you, with a horse. Keep talkin' to her, now, and I'll do her hock that gentle she won't know she's touched."

He took the sponge from the black boy, who stood aside thankfully, and softly bathed the injured leg, keeping away from the hock at first, until she had grown used to his touch. The mare started a little when she felt the sponge, but Dick's caressing voice and fingers steadied her, and presently she stood quietly, only flinching when the sponge finally rested on the worst place.

"There now--'tis nice an' comfortin' against that hot place, isn't it, my beauty?" said O'Mara wheedlingly. "Begob, she'd say 'Thank you,' if she could spake. 'Is it kick?' says she. 'I'll not kick at all if only I'm treated like a lady,' she says. Divil a bit of vice have she in her, only she couldn't see why we'd want to hurt her, an' she havin' done no harrm to anny wan of us. Whist then, me jewel, let me hould it on ye just a wee bit now."

The soft Irish voice ran on coaxingly, and Dick's hand never ceased fondling, and finally the mare stood quietly, submitting to the gentle handling of her hock with perfect confidence. It was finished at last, and Dick led her to the gate of a shady little paddock close by.

"This is the hospital paddock," O'Mara told him. "'Tis only invalids goes in here, where we can keep an eye on them. She have not much company, only ould Druid, an' he's nearly well afther stakin' himself." He indicated a big bay Clydesdale grazing in the corner. "But they're the best of friends entirely."

"Where are the other horses?" Dick asked.

"They're all out in the home paddock; there's just a few gets stabled at night since the boss came home. Pretty fresh, most of 'em; nearly the whole mob was turned out for a spell while he was away, barrin' a few needed about the place, and they're all kicking up their heels. And have you many, sir, at your own place?"

Dick told him, and they stood by the gate talking of horses--both forgetting Merle, who stood still in the yard, looking after them sullenly. She had experienced only a new pang of jealousy over Dick's handling of the bay mare. O'Mara need not have called to her to stand back, she reflected angrily; she knew the mare, and she was certain she could have quietened her just as well as any strange boy who had never seen her before. It was just the way in everything, she thought; whenever Dick was about she was not wanted. Now O'Mara and he stood talking as if she did not exist. Well, if she was not wanted, at least she did not mean to stay. She had been told to entertain Dick, but to stand waiting while he talked to the groom was quite a different matter. Her book was still where she had left it in the tree. Thus it was that when Dick suddenly remembered his guide and turned from the entrancing company of O'Mara, who was telling him stories of horses he had managed as head-groom in a big hunting stable in County Cork, there was no Merle to be seen.

"Is it Miss Merle?" asked the Irishman. "I seen her streakin' across to the garden five minutes ago. That's the queer little gerrl entirely. She's that short in her temper you'd hardly hould her at times."

"I suppose she's all right," said Dick uncomfortably.

"You can be very sure Miss Merle's all right," said O'Mara. "She do be getting all she wants, most times--herself is the wan to make sure of that. Well, as I was sayin', Captain Keogh had a big brown horse----" and Merle and everything else faded from Dick's mind.

It was an hour later that Mr. Warner and Mr. Lester, riding home, perceived, in a tree in the front garden, the flutter of a blue print frock.

"That looks like Merle," Mr. Warner said. "I wonder if Dick is with her." He gave a short whistle. It was Merle's signal from him, and she responded to it promptly, running to the fence.

"Where's Dick?" queried her father.

"I don't know."

Mr. Warner's face darkened.

"How's that, Merle? I left you to look after him."

"Well, he doesn't want me--he started talking to O'Mara," Merle said sulkily.

"H'm," said her father, giving her a keen look. They rode on.

"For goodness' sake, don't worry about my urchin," said Mr. Lester, laughing. "He's well able to look after himself."

"I assure you I'm more worried about my own," said his friend. "If I could only inculcate some ordinary good manners into her----"

"Why, she's a nice little soul. I think you worry unduly," said Mr. Lester. "And she's only a baby yet." He gave a short laugh. "Dick is happy enough, at any rate."

They had come into view of Dick and O'Mara--the former perched on the gate-post of the little paddock, while the old man, leaning against the gate, was talking so earnestly that he failed to see his master approaching. Dick's intent face suddenly beamed, and a shout of delighted laughter rang out.

"Oh, that was ripping!" he cried. "My word, I'll tell father that!" Then his eye fell on his father, and he slid from the post and ran to meet the riders.

"I say, what a lovely horse!" His glance dwelt for a moment only on his father's mount--a useful black--and then lingered on Mr. Warner's. Indeed, there was excuse for looking at that horse. He was a great iron grey, all of seventeen hands in height, and built on perfect lines. He carried Mr. Warner's huge bulk as if it were a feather weight, and his beautiful head and mild eye showed both spirit and good temper. As he stood there, arching his powerful neck, he was a picture to delight any horse lover. Mr. Warner laughed.

"Not bad, is he?" he said. "I bred him myself, and he's carried me through many a long day and never seemed tired--and I've never been able to say that of any other horse. Good old Conqueror!" He swung to the ground and patted the grey's neck, and Conqueror put his head against him. "Well, young man, and how have you been getting on? Did Merle desert you?"

"I'm afraid she may have thought I deserted her, Mr. Warner," Dick said, reddening a little. "I got talking here, and I clean forgot she had stayed behind. I hope she isn't offended."

"He was helping me with the mare beyant, sir," said O'Mara. "An' 'tis the fine help he was--that black imp Jimmy had me an' the mare desthroyed with his clumsiness."

"Good man!" said Mr. Warner, nodding at Dick approvingly. "I'm glad Merle didn't leave you alone. We'll soon make it all square with her. Did she show you all round?"

Dick grinned.

"We didn't get very far," he said. "We just came by the meat houses here, and then we stopped. You see, the bay mare was very interesting."

"I see," said Mr. Warner, inwardly wondering why the mare seemed to have failed to interest his daughter. "Well, shall we have a look round now?"

They left the horses to O'Mara, and went down the hill to the creek, where an hydraulic ram conserved the flow of the water and ensured an ample supply for the household. There was a great storage dam--a miniature lake, indeed, whereon swam many strange waterfowl. A dinghy was moored to a tiny landing stage, and there was a bathing box, with a good spring-board projecting over the deepest part. The lake was fringed with trees. Beyond them was the vegetable garden, where a stolid Chinaman gave them a friendly greeting, as he worked among his well-tended beds; and then came a high green hedge, through a gateway in which they passed to the wide lawns and gay flower beds surrounding the house itself. Everywhere there were great trees, and the whole impression was of space and shade and beauty. A tennis court, where the twinses and Bobby were playing a tennis of their own, with forgotten balls, lay to the east; the players uttered loud shrieks of joy at the sight of the new-comers, and fled to meet them, pursued by their protesting black nurse. Thereafter the tour continued, with Bobby clinging to Dick's hand, and with Mr. Warner and Mr. Lester each in undisputed possession of a twin, while nanna followed disconsolately in the rear.

"It's a rambling old place," Mr. Warner said. "We began with two rooms, and every drop of water had to be carried up from the creek in buckets. The windmills do it all now, and I've an oil engine that pumps our supply if the wind fails us."

"You added a good bit to your two rooms," said Mr. Lester, laughing.

"Well--rather. Of course, there's no architecture about it; we just planted rooms wherever we needed them. That big shed is for the black girls; the men have a camp on the other side of the creek. That"--he pointed with his pipe stem--"is Macleay's cottage; the store is close by. The building connecting with the house by that covered gallery is the children's special preserve--school-room, play-room and den. They can make as much noise there as they like--and they generally do! That's the barracks--the bachelors' quarters--beyond the tennis court. I've generally two or three jackeroos on the place, and there are beds there for any stray man who happens along. The stock yards are on the far side of the stables; I'm a bit proud of my yards. The forge and blacksmith's store are near them. The new-looking building is, of course, the garage; the car is a recent toy."

"Do you like it better than horses, Mr. Warner?" queried Dick.

"No," said his host, explosively. "I wouldn't give my old Conqueror for a dozen cars! Still, it makes a tremendous difference; we really were pretty well cut off from civilisation before we had it. As it is we seldom get a mail more than once a fortnight, and our stores come up twice a year, by bullock wagons or donkey teams. But we can get down to the railway fairly easily now, if we want to, and we can get a doctor in eight or ten hours. That feeling makes life much easier to a woman."

Mr. Lester pulled at his pipe.

"Do you reflect, Dick," he said, "that we've been accustomed to think ourselves quite in the country at Kurrajong?"

"My word, yes!" said Dick. "Three miles out--and we reckon we're bush whackers! Makes you feel small, doesn't it, father?"

"It makes me feel suburban," said his father, laughing. "And that's a thing I never expected to feel."

Mr. Warner gave his big, comfortable laugh.

"Come and see old Macleay's domain," he said.

They found the storekeeper busy supplying the wants of the two stockmen; men camped in huts five miles from the homestead. A red blanket--"burned the best one, goin' to sleep with the pipe alight," explained one--shirts, boots, a dog-collar, tobacco, tinned fish and fruit, cartridges, boiled sweets, writing-paper, for the younger--"Engaged, 'e is!" was the explanation from his mate--a comb, a jack-knife, a box of pills, and some hair-oil. The pile on the counter grew, and the brown, silent men gazed at it with the satisfaction of children; finally wandering round the store and selecting various articles that they did not want at all, for the mere pleasure of buying. Finally they sauntered off, asking Mr. Macleay to send out their purchases by the ration-cart.

"First time those laddies have been in for three months," said the storekeeper, after greeting the new-comers. "They canna get whisky, and they must knock down their cheque somehow. 'Tis a harrmless enough dissipation--bullseyes and hair-oil! But these mouth-organs were their greatest finds. There'll be great serenading of the dingoes and 'possums wi' those!"

"There'll be a split in the camp, I should think," said Mr. Warner, laughing. "One will want to play 'Swanee River,' and the other 'Camptown Races,' and it will end in a fight!"

"Aweel, there's country enough where they are for them to get out o' hearin' of each ither," Macleay said. "Happen they'll agree to play duets. What do you think of our store, Maister Lester?"

"I think it's ripping," said Dick, with enthusiasm.

"I had no idea you had such a stock as this," Mr. Lester remarked, looking round the big building.

"Oh, it's necessary," Mr. Warner said. "We're a kind of outpost of civilisation--even for the station wants, and for the blacks we need to stock a lot of goods, and the men are far more contented if they can get the oddments they need--and some that they don't need! There are lots of things here that ordinarily we wouldn't dream of keeping, but that some of the men ask for them--mouth organs, for example. They get the things almost at cost price, and they can pick up some dainties that aren't included in the station rations."

"Why, you've a regular chemist's shop in this corner," said Mr. Lester.

"That's the maist popular corner of the store," said Macleay. "Pills--ye've no idea how the bushman loves pills; any new brand tempts them. I think they eat them for dessert! Patent medicines of every kind--hair oil--soap; 'tis as much as my life is worth not to have everything on hand. There's a few likes books--I keep a lot of cheap novels; and they're fair terrors for a Bulletin, or any ither weekly paper. Sweets are low at the moment, but the stores wagons will be up soon and then there'll be a rush in from the out stations! If you're here then, Maister Lester, I'll tak' ye on as junior clerk and salesman!"

"If it's sweets, I'd like that!" grinned Dick.

"Do you let the blacks in here?" asked Mr. Lester.

"No; they have their own store for baccy, cheap cloth and a few other things. You see, they don't deal in money at all; they get goods as wages. And it's no good dangling temptation before their thieving eyes. Also, even with an honest and quiet tribe like this, there's risk of information leaking to tribes that are not so quiet."

"Do you ever have any trouble?"

"Hardly ever. Sometimes a raiding party comes down to the out station from the north, and we get a few cattle speared. But they've a wholesome fear of us; every stockman is armed in that part of the run, and cartridges are part of the regular ration issue. I don't let any man work alone in a lonely place, and indeed I like three to camp together if possible. But it's two years since we had any bother," finished Mr. Warner, "and I think the blacks have come to regard us as too far south to be good hunting ground."

A bell rang loudly from the house--so suddenly that Dick jumped.

"Did you think that was a raiding party?" queried his host. "Well, it used to be the signal for that; only then you wouldn't forget hearing its ring. It can make a very tolerable din in the hands of an active person. Now it's reduced to a polite tinkle, and it means lunch. Come along, or we shall have Mrs. Warner sending a search party for us; so long, Macleay!" He hurried them hospitably towards the house.