Part 7

Walter did not trouble himself about such things. He made friends after a fashion with the men, and rode about with his father to look after the horses, and cattle, and sheep; the maize-paddock and the potato fields; the clearers, the fencers, and the sawyers. His father soon let him go about by himself, and then he _was_ a proud and happy boy. He could scarcely believe that only a year ago he was stumbling through the irregular and defective verbs in that gloomy old Norfolk school-room. Walter could leap logs now far better than he could conjugate _Fio_ or _Inquam_ then. Of course, his father or his mother gave him lessons every now and then, but that was not like regular school, you know. Long Steve had taught him to crack a stock-whip, and Long Steve's wife had plaited him a cabbage-tree hat (in those days the lagoon was studded with cabbage-tree palms), and Walter used to gallop through the bush like a Wild Huntsman on his own three-parts blood chestnut Dragon-fly. Sometimes he went out on foot with his little gun, and after a bit he managed to shoot wallabies and kangaroo-rats, and quail and snipe, and bronze-wings, and parrots and cockatoos to make pies of. Sometimes, too, he took his gun out with him in the boat, and shot wild duck, and now and then a black swan, on the lagoon. In the lagoon and the little river, moreover, he caught eels and schnappers, and guard-fish, and so-called bream, and mullet and trout, and delicious oysters. The Captain was very proud of the way in which his little boy took to the colony, but Mrs. Daventry was very anxious because he was out so much alone.

One day, when the Captain and Walter rode home, they found Mrs. Daventry and Phoebe almost dead with alarm. A party of blacks had taken possession of the front verandah, on which they were jabbering and gesticulating--rubbing their sides and poking their fingers down their throats. Poor Mrs. Daventry and her servant thought that these were signs that the blacks wanted to eat _them_, and therefore were ready to faint from fear. The Captain soon bundled the black fellows off the verandah, but he made it a point of policy to be kind to them, and so he ordered the cook to supply them with tea and damper and mutton chops. They ate and drank until even they could eat and drink no more, and then remarking, with great self-satisfaction, that they had "budgeree big belly," they drowsily tramped into the bush, and lay down in the sun to sleep off their surfeit.

The black fellows were not grateful to the Captain for his kindness. Unfortunately, they had tasted his potatoes, and thought them so nice that they twice saved him the trouble of digging up his crop, and once even scooped out and baked his seed-potatoes. The Captain did not want to make enemies of the darkies, but he was obliged after that to give up supplying them with chops and damper, except when they had fairly earned them by working for them.

Far worse thieves than the black fellows, however, persistently preyed on Daventry Hall.

All the assigned servants, except Long Steve and his wife, were habitual thieves. They did not get any wages for their work, and so they thought themselves free to help themselves to their master's property. So many pounds of salt or fresh meat and flour, so much coarse brown sugar and inferior tea, and a little tobacco, were the rations served out to each man every week; but there was good living in the men's huts for all that. China pigs, ducks, turkeys, &c., mysteriously disappeared. The men made out that they had wandered into the bush, and been devoured by bush beasts and birds, or else starved to death; but if Captain Daventry had gone to the huts a little more frequently, instead of trusting, as he did, to his overseer, the savoury scent that often issued from them would have told him what had become of his poultry, &c. Walter noticed the savoury steam one evening, but the overseer said that he had shot some wild ducks, and given them to the men. The overseer was a convict--a smooth-faced, smooth-tongued rascal. He was trusted to weigh out the rations, and the men used to carry a good deal besides their rations out of the store. The house servants, too, whenever they had a good opportunity, would appropriate unguarded valuables. They had no difficulty in disposing of them, since all the assigned servants, except Long Steve and his wife, were in league with the ticket-of-leave farmers round about. Most of these ticket-of-leavers were a thieving, drunken lot. Some of them would reconvey their Government grants for a keg of rum. As for conveyance of another kind--Pistol's--they did not rob one another, but gentlemen-settlers they considered fair game. Captain Daventry's bullocks found their way into the ticket-of-leavers' beef-casks. They stole his best horses; they clapped their brands on his best colts, fillies, and calves; they pastured their own horses and cattle on his grant; through the villany of his overseer and convict shepherds, they robbed him of his sheep wholesale. They had even the impudence to steal Dragon-fly!

"Why, Daventry," said one of the Captain's friends one day, "what made you sell that capital chestnut your little fellow used to ride? He fetched a good price, though, I believe."

"_I_ didn't sell him," answered the Captain, moodily; "he was stolen. A nice lot of neighbours we've got; however, I think I've scared 'em for one while."

When Dragon-fly was first missing, the overseer had comforted Walter by telling him that his horse could only have strayed a little way into the bush, and was sure to turn up soon. Mounted on another nag, Walter rode about for days in search of his favourite, but never saw him more. Walter found out something, however. He was riding home very dispiritedly one evening, when he noticed Black Poley--as one of his father's shepherds who lived at an out-station was nicknamed, from the resemblance his head bore to a hornless bullock's--mounting the rise on the right of the gully in which Walter was riding. Walter could not understand what Poley was doing there at that time of night, and having been made suspicious by the loss of his horse, he pressed after Poley as quietly as he could. By the time he topped the ridge it was nearly dark, but he could make out Poley going down the other side of the ridge, and another man coming up to meet him. Walter was a brave little fellow. He tied his horse to a tree, and, slipping down the ridge, got within earshot of the two men, who were sitting, smoking and talking, on a fallen tree-trunk.

"Well, Poley, how many can you let me have this time?"

Poley gave a gruff laugh, and answered with an oath: "---- if I don't try it on with three score! The cove is so jolly green, it's my belief he'll never miss 'em. I began with twos an' threes, an' now I have worked it up to a score, and I've al'ays got over the cove somehow. What does sich as him know about sheep an' farmin'? ---- if I don't try _four_ score--good yows, too; so you must stand something handsome."

"To-morrow morning then, at the old place--Sal's Pannikin."

"All right! I'll work round there about an hour after sunrise."

Then something was said about the overseer; but what, Walter could not make out. Not waiting to hear any more, he crept back to his horse, mounted, galloped home, and told his father what he had heard. At first the captain was going to consult with the overseer; but one or two little things recently had rather shaken his confidence in the overseer, and so he sent for Long Steve instead. Long Steve knew Sal's Pannikin well. It was a lonely hollow in an unoccupied part of the bush, and was called Sal's because on its brink a Mrs. Sarah Mullins had once kept a most disreputable sly drinking-house. Strange goings on had taken place there. At last the landlady had been brutally murdered in her own house, and after that it was allowed to go to ruin, and had the reputation of being haunted.

"What was the other man like, Master Walter?" asked Long Steve.

Walter could only say that he talked very much as if he had a hot potato in his mouth.

"Oh, that's little Dick Green, at the head of the lagoon," cried Long Steve, half disappointed at not having found a worthier foeman. "It's hard, Cap'en, if you an' me can't nab little Dick Green an' the Poley."

"Would you like to go, Walter?" said the Captain. "I think it's only fair that you should see the fun."

Of course Walter wanted to go. So it was arranged that Steve should have tea and chops ready, and three horses saddled, at his hut (which stood apart from the other men's), and call his master and Walter at half-past two next morning. The Captain thought it advisable to start thus early, in case the sheep-stealers should have changed their minds after Walter left them, and agreed to meet at an earlier hour for safety's sake.

Walter greatly enjoyed his early breakfast by the wood fire in Long Steve's hut, and the silent ride through the bush--all three armed. But when they had put up their horses in Sal's ruined stables, and were crouching in Sal's roofless parlour, on the cracked hearthstone of which a frog was croaking dolefully, the adventure did not seem quite so jolly to Walter.

But presently, while it was still quite dark, a light came dancing down the other side of the hollow. Long Steve sallied out to reconnoitre. When he came back he said,

"Yes, it's little Dick, sure enough, busy finishing off his brush-hurdles. He'll soon ha' done, and then you and me, Cap'en, had better creep down to the fold whilst it's yet dark. Master Walter can stay here with the horses, and bring 'em down when we _cooey_. Oh, yes, Cap'en, he'll be safe enough. Neither Dick nor the Poley would set a foot in here if you'd give them a thousand pounds."

In spite of this assurance, Walter wearied of his lonely vigil.

At length the eastern sky brightened, the laughing-jackasses hooted out their hideously hilarious morning chorus, and the sun came up, bronzing the scrub and the tree-tops. Walter could see Dick quite plainly now. He was lying on the ground smoking his pipe. Then came another weary watch, but at last up started little Dick and went to meet Black Poley, who was coming down to the Pannikin with the stolen sheep. They were all driven into the fold, and the two thieves were quietly talking together, when, as it seemed to Walter, from beneath their very feet the Captain and Long Steve jumped up like Jacks-in-the-box. The Captain felled Black Poley as if he had been indeed a bullock. Long Steve laid little Dick on his back as if he had been a child of four years old. By the time Walter had obeyed the cooey and galloped down with the horses, both thieves had their arms strongly bound behind them with green hide. With strips of the same they were fastened to the Captain's and Long Steve's stirrups, and then driving the ewes before them, the three thief-takers set out for home. As Long Steve had expected, they found the rest of the flock on the other side of the ridge that sloped down into Sal's Pannikin.

The overseer turned as white as a sheet when his master rode up to Daventry Hall with his sheep and his prisoners, but neither Dick nor the Poley peached.

Black Poley was sentenced to an awful flogging before he was sent back to Sydney, and little Dick got ten years in a chain-gang. The Captain thought now that his property would be safe for a while, but he was utterly mistaken. He had only weeded out two scoundrels, whose places were almost instantly supplied by two at least as bad; he had managed to focus the hatred of the district on himself, and, moreover, just then Hook-handed Bill and his gang came on circuit, so to speak, to the country round the lagoon. They had made their last _habitat_ rather too hot to hold them, and with secure hiding-places in the range of shore-hills, they promised themselves some rich raids on the gentlemen-settlers who were dotted here and there around the lagoon.

Hook-handed Bill was a bushranger, without any of the redeeming qualities which a certain set of story-tellers are so fond of giving to robbers. He was a greedy, savage brute. Physically he was a left handed-giant, who owed his _sobriquet_ to the fact that he had lost his right hand, and supplied its place with a sharp hook. Horrid tales were told of what that hook had done; "ripping up" was Hook-handed Bill's favourite mode of murder. Burning alive in a bullock's hide stood next in his estimation. It was said, too, that he was in the habit of waylaying bullock-drivers on their way down to Sydney with their masters' wool, of shamming to be on the best of terms with them, and then murdering them wholesale in their sleep, afterwards disposing of the wool through the agency of some of his ticket-of-leave friends.

Such a villain, with half a dozen followers only not quite so bad as himself, was no pleasant bush neighbour. Some of the gentlemen-settlers sent their wives and children into Sydney. All rode about armed by day, and at night had their most valuable cattle driven into the stockyards, and their favourite horses into the stables, whilst their houses were turned into little forts. In spite of all precautions, the bushrangers committed the most impudent robberies, and though some of the gentlemen-settlers assisted the policemen in hunting the robbers, no capture was made.

One afternoon, when Walter was in a lonely part of his father's grant, a huge, shaggy-bearded, roughly-clad fellow sprang from behind a clump of trees, and seized him by the collar. The stranger's right arm had no hand, but brandished a sharp hook, and Walter thought that his last hour was come. He was awfully frightened, but he tried not to seem so.

"Let me say my prayers first," said Walter.

Hook-handed Bill gave a grin which was even more hideous than his habitual frown, as he answered,

"Time enough, youngster. I ain't a-goin' to kill you afore night. I want you to take a message to your ---- father. He's a deal too cocky for my taste, is the Captain, flogging his men, and lagging his neighbours, and now he's been boasting that he'll take me dead or alive. Will he? We'll soon see who's master. I'll show him how much I care for his blowing. You take him Hook-handed Bill's compliments, and tell him that I give him fair warning that I mean to pay him a visit to-night, and to half-flog the life out of him and his sneak of a bullock-driver, and then to string 'em both up--an' you, too, you ---- young spy!--an' to carry off the womenfolk he's brought from ---- Old England to look down on their betters. There! you be off, youngster!"

At first the Captain was inclined to treat the bushranger's threat as mere bravado.

"However," he added, "if the rascal does choose to come, he could not have consulted my convenience better. The police are coming over to-night, Walter, my boy. We meant to have given the bushrangers a hunt to-morrow morning, but if they like to save us the trouble, so much the better. Don't say anything to your mamma, but go and call Long Steve."

The bullock-driver was firmly convinced that Hook-handed Bill would keep his word, and advised his master to begin his preparations at once, in case the bushrangers should hear from some of their scouts of the intended police visit, and resolve to rush the house before the arrival of the constables. Accordingly guns, pistols, ammunition, a sword, a cutlass, and a bayonet were got in readiness by the Captain--not that he really believed that there would be any use for them that night. The kitchen clock struck seven--eight--nine, and still the constables did not come. A little after nine the convict house-servants went away to their huts, and Long Steve carefully bolted the doors after them. Mrs. Daventry and Phoebe were persuaded to go to bed. The garrison of three sat in silence--the Captain expecting every moment to hear the police ride up; Long Steve and Walter, on the other hand, dreading the arrival of the bushrangers. About ten a party of men _were_ heard galloping up.

"There they are!" cried the Captain, and before Long Steve could stop him, he had opened the front door and run down to the garden-gate. "Why, what a time you've been, Saunders," the Captain shouted to the supposed police-sergeant.

"Have we?" growled back a gruff voice. "Well, we'll try to make up for lost time, you ----!"

Discovering his mistake, the captain fired his pistol at the speaker, and rushed back to the house. A hailstorm of lead soon rattled on the weatherboards, and Mrs. Daventry and Phoebe got up and rushed about like maniacs. The women's screams were not calculated to improve the Captain and Long Steve's aim, and though they had the advantage of cover, and Walter to load for them, and of the moon which came up presently, seven to two are heavy odds. (The overseer and assigned servants said next morning that they had been sound asleep--one, indeed, had heard a little firing, but thought that it was the Captain out duck-shooting!) I am afraid that the besiegers would have been the victors, had not a party of the Captain's friends suddenly made their appearance. They had been dining together about ten miles off, and a drunken convict had let out in their hearing the intended attack on Daventry Hall. They had instantly rushed to horse, and galloped the ten miles at racing speed. The bushrangers turned tail when the new-comers poured a volley into them. Five of the scoundrels, altogether, had been hit, but only one was taken. When the prisoner was escorted to the nearest police-barracks next day, the reason of the constables' non-appearance at Daventry Hall the night before was discovered.

The escort were very much astonished to find no one at the barrack gates, or in the barrack-yard. They were still more astonished to find the sergeant and his men lashed down on the mess-room floor--all gagged, pinioned, and fettered.

Hook-handed Bill had been fully aware of the Captain's arrangements with the police, and had taken them by surprise in their lonely barracks before he dispatched his insolent message by Walter.

Although the bushranger had been beaten off, he and his ticket-of-leave allies continued to harass Captain Daventry. They did it to such an extent--cruelly hamstringing and mutilating cattle and horses when they did not choose to take the trouble to steal them--that Captain Daventry soon found that he was losing money fast. Being a soldier, however, he thought it would be disgraceful to give in to such "a lot of vermin," but Mrs. Daventry declared that she could not live any longer in constant fear of her own life and her husband's. The Captain could face bushrangers, but he could not stand hysterics. The Kakadua was then "outside"--as the colonists used to call unsettled districts--but Mrs. Daventry was willing to go thither when she found that bushrangers did not think it worth their while to visit the district. The Captain took up some good land on both banks of the river, and there--soured by his experiences--he became the Tartar his son owned that he had been.

X. PIONEERING.

When Sydney Lawson left home to take up new country for himself, there happened to be no tutor at Wonga-Wonga, and so Harry and Donald were allowed to go with the young squatter, both to keep them out of mischief and to enlarge their "colonial experience." Besides, they would be of as much use as, at least, a man and a half. The boys were away for months, but they never grew tired of their long holiday, although they often had to work hard enough in it. It was the thought that they were doing real man's work, and yet holiday-making at the same time, that made the holiday so jolly.

Just after sunrise one calm bright morning, the little expedition started--Sydney, Harry, Donald, and King Dick-a-Dick's heir-apparent, "Prince Chummy," on horseback, and in charge of a small mob of horses and another of cattle, and two old hands in charge of the bullock-dray that carried the baggage, stores, tools, nails, horseshoes, arms, ammunition, &c. "Jawing Jim" and "Handsome Bob" were the _sobriquets_ by which these two old hands were known--both given on the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle, since Jim scarcely ever opened his mouth, and Bob was nearly as black, and not nearly so good-looking, as Prince Chummy. Jim was a Staffordshire man, and Bob was a Cockney. They were both good bushmen, but they had both been sent out for burglary, and therefore they may seem to have been strange guards for the commissariat-waggon, though the spirit-cask _had_ another cask outside it as a precaution against furtive tapping. But for one thing, they were pretty well under the eye of the rest of the party; and for another, each watched the other like duplicated Japanese officials. There was a long-standing rivalry between them. Each sneered at the other's home exploits. When Jem did open his lips to any one except his bullocks, it was generally to launch some sarcasm at Bob, but in a tongue-fight he was rarely a match for the ugly Londoner, whose lonely bush life had not cured him of his Cockney glibness.

All the Wonga-Wonga-ites mustered to see the little party off--Mr. Lawson riding with it for a mile or two. There was a little confusion at starting. A young imported bull strolled up, angrily snuffing and pawing, as if jealous of the superior size of the bullocks; and just as they had begun to obey Jim's very strong language and oft-cracked long whip, the little bull took a mean advantage, made a mad flank charge on the middle yoke, and threw the whole line into disorder. Thereupon Bob, who had made himself comfortable on the flour-sacks in the dray, began to chaff his comrade, in his own elegant style, on his clumsiness.

"Call _your_self a bullock-driver?" Bob was saying, when an old shoe that Mrs. Jones had thrown after Harry hit Bob in the face.

He was going to abuse Mrs. Jones then, but Jim growled out,

"Doan't get inta a scoat, lahd! It hit thee wheer tha ken't be hoort," and Handsome Bob had to subside into his flour-sack couch again, silenced for once.

With much cracking of whips, trampling of hoofs, clanking of chains, jingling of tin pots, grinding of wheels, and creaking of pole and yokes, the expedition at last fairly got under way. We watched it go down the rise, across the flat, and through the slip-panels that led into the bush beyond; and then, when we could see nothing but the dust above the tree-tops, Mrs. Lawson and Mrs. M'Intyre, who was visiting at Wonga-Wonga, went into their bed-rooms--perhaps to pray for their boys' safety.

I saw them start, but can only relate their adventures from what I heard of them when the boys came back.

The settled country through which they passed would have seemed wild enough to most English people, accustomed to hedged-in little fields, fitting like patches in a patchwork quilt, with roads and lanes curving between them, and railways running over them in the most rural places. In this "settled country" there were miles without a fence, and our pioneers generally camped out at night; although, when they came to a public, or an "accommodation-house," with a paddock, about sundown, they would have a night between sheets for a change, and when they chanced to halt near a head-station at nightfall, they could make sure of hearty hospitality, although not always of a bed. As they went on, the country seemed wilder and wilder to their eyes, although perhaps we should not have seen much difference.