Now we"re nearly home--that"s the fence of our home-paddock. And there are Norah and Wally coming to meet you."
"Oh--where?" Tommy started up, looking excitedly round the landscape.
"Oh--there she is--the dear! And isn"t that a beautiful horse!"
"That"s Norah"s special old pony, Bosun," said Jim. "We"re making her very unhappy by telling her she"s grown too big for him, but he really carries her like a bird. A habit might look too much on him, but not that astride kit. You got yours, by the way, Tommy, I hope?"
"Oh yes. I look very strange in it," said Tommy. "And Bob thinks I might as well have worn out his old uniforms. But I shall never ride like that--as Norah does."
She looked at Norah, who was coming across the paddock with Wally, at a hard canter. Her pony was impatient, reefing and plunging in his desire to gallop; and Norah was sitting him easily, her hands, well down, giving to the strain on the bit, her slight figure, in coat and breeches, swaying lightly to each bound. The sunlight rippled on Bosun"s glossy, bay coat, and on the big black horse Wally rode. They pulled up, laughing, at the gateway, just as the car turned off the road. There were confused and enthusiastic greetings, and the car dashed on up the track, with an outrider on each side--both horses strongly resenting this new and ferocious monster. The years had brought a good deal of sober sense to Bosun and Monarch, but motors were still unfamiliar objects on Billabong. Indeed, no car of the size of Norah"s Rolls-Royce had ever been seen in the district, and the men gaped at it open-mouthed as Jim drove it round to the stable after unloading his pa.s.sengers.
"Yerra, but that"s the fine carry-van," said Murty. "Is that the size they have them in England, now?"
"No, it isn"t, Murty--not as a rule," Jim answered. "This was built specially for a man who was half an invalid; he used to go for long tours, and sleep in the car because he hated hotels. So it"s a special size. It used to be jolly useful taking out wounded men in England."
"Sure, it would be," Murty said. "Only--somehow, it don"t seem to fit into Billabong, Mr. Jim!"
"So big as that! I say, Murty!"
"Yerra, there"s room enough for it," grinned the Irishman. "Only, motors and Billabong don"t go hand in hand--we"ve always stuck to horses, haven"t we, Mr. Jim?"
"We"ll do that still," Jim said. "But it will be useful, all the same, Murty." He laughed at the stockman"s lugubrious face. "Oh, I know it"s giving you the sort of pain you had when dad had the telephone put on--"
"Well, "tis the quare onnatural little machine, an" I niver feel anyways at home with it, Mr. Jim," Murty defended himself.
"There"s lots like you, Murty. But you"ll admit that when we"ve got to send a telegram, it"s better to telephone it than make a man ride thirty-four miles with it?"
"I suppose it is," said the Irishman doubtfully. "I dunno, though--if "twas that black imp of a Billy he"d as well be doing that as propping up the stable wall an" smokin"!"
Jim chuckled.
"There"s no getting round an Irishman when he makes up his mind," he said. "And if you had to catch the eight o"clock train to Melbourne I believe you"d rather get up at three in the morning and run up the horses to drive in, than leave here comfortably in the car at seven."
"Is it me to dhrive in it?" demanded Murty, in horror. "Begob, I"d lose me life before I"d get into one of thim quare, sawed-off things. Give me something with shafts, Mr. Jim, and a dacint horse in them. More by token, I would not get up at three in the morning either, but dhrive in aisy an" comfortable the night before." He beamed on Jim with so clear a conviction that he was unanswerable that Jim hadn"t the heart to argue further. Instead he ran the car deftly into a buggy-shed whence an ancient double buggy had been deposed to make room for her, and then fell to discussing with Murty the question of building a garage, with a turn-table and pit for cleaning and repairs. To which Murty gave the eager interest and attention he would have shown had Jim proposed building anything, even had it been an Eiffel Tower on the front lawn.
Brownie came out through the box-trees to the stables, presently.
"Now, Master Jim, afternoon tea"s in these ten minutes."
"Good gracious! I forgot all about tea!" Jim exclaimed. "Thanks awfully, Brownie. Had your own?" He slipped his arm through hers as they turned back to the house.
"Not yet, my dear," said Brownie, beaming up at him. That this huge Major, with four years of war service to his credit, was exactly the same to her as the little boy she had bathed and dressed in years gone by, was a matter of nightly thanksgiving in her prayers. "I was just goin" to settle to it when it come over me that you weren"t in--and the visitors there an" all."
"I"d come and have mine with you in the kitchen if they weren"t there,"
Jim told her. "Tea in your kitchen is better than anything else." He patted her shoulders as he left her at the door of her domain, going off with long strides to wash his hands.
"We didn"t wait for you," Norah said, as he came into the drawing-room; a big cheery room, with long windows opening out upon the veranda, and a conservatory at one end. A fire of red gum logs made it pleasantly warm; the tea table was drawn near its blaze, and the arm-chairs made a semicircle round it. "These poor people looked far too hungry to wait--to say nothing of Wally and myself. How did the car go, Jimmy?"
"Splendidly," Jim said, taking his cup, and retiring from the tea-table with a scone. "Never ran better; that man in Cunjee knows his job, which I didn"t expect. Are you tired, Tommy?"
"Tired?--no," said Tommy. "I was very hungry, but that is getting better. And Norah is going to show me Billabong, so I could not possibly dream of being tired."
"If Norah means to show you all Billabong before dark, she"ll have to hurry," said Jim lazily. "Don"t you let yourself be persuaded into anything so desperate, Tommy."
"Don"t you worry; I"ll give her graduated doses," Norah said. "I"ll watch the patient carefully, and see if there is any sign of strength failing. When do you begin to teach Bob to run a station?"
"I never saw anyone in such a hurry," said Jim. "Why, the poor beggar hasn"t had his tea yet--give him time."
"But we are in a hurry," said Tommy. "We"re burning to learn all about it. Norah is to teach me the house side, while you instruct Bob how to tell a merino bullock--is it not?--from an Ayrshire." Everybody ate with suspicious haste, and she looked at them shrewdly. "Now, I have said that all wrong, I feel sure, but it"s just as well for you to be prepared for that. Norah will have a busy time correcting my mistakes."
"You aren"t supposed to know anything about cattle and things like that," said Norah. "And when it comes to the house side, I don"t think you"ll find I can teach you much--if anyone brought up to know French cooking and French housekeeping has much to learn from a backblocks Australian, I"ll be surprised."
"In fact," said Mr. Linton, "I should think that the lessons will generally end in the students of domestic economy fleeing forth upon horses and studying how to deal with beef--on the hoof. Don"t you, Wally?"
"Rather," said Wally. "And Brownie will wash up after them, and say, "Bless their hearts, why would they stay in a hot kitchen!" And so poor old Bob will go down the road to ruin!"
"It"s a jolly prospect," said Bob placidly. "I think we"ll knock a good deal of fun out of it!"
They trooped out in a body presently on their preliminary voyage of discovery; touring the house itself, with its big rooms and wide corridors, and the broad balconies that ran round three sides, from which you looked far across the run--miles of rolling plains, dotted with trees and clumps of timber, and merging into a far line of low, scrub-grown hills. Then outside, and to the stables--a ma.s.sive red brick pile, creeper-covered, where Monarch and Garryowen, and Bosun, and the buggy ponies, looked placidly from their loose boxes, and asked for--and got--apples from Jim"s pockets. Tommy even made her way up the steep ladder to the loft that ran the whole length of the stables--big enough for the men"s yearly dance, but just now crammed with fragrant oaten hay. She wanted to see everything, and chatted away in her eager, half-French fashion, like a happy child.
"It is so lovely to be here," she told Norah later, when the keen evening wind had driven them indoors from a tour of the garden. She was kneeling on the floor of her bedroom, unpacking her trunk, while Norah perched on the end of the bed. "You see, I am no longer afraid; and I have always been afraid since Aunt Margaret died. In Lancaster Gate I was afraid all the time, especially when I was planning to run away.
Then, on the ship, though every one was so kind, the big, unknown country was like a wall of Fear ahead; even in Melbourne everything seemed uncertain, doubtful. But now, quite suddenly, it is all right. I just know we shall get along quite well."
"Why, of course you will," Norah said, laughing down at the earnest face. "You"re the kind of people who must do well, because you are so keen. And Billabong has adopted you, and we"re going to see that you make a success of things. You"re our very own immigrants!"
"It"s nice to be owned by some one who isn"t my step-mother," said Tommy happily. "I began to think I was hers, body and soul--when she appeared on that awful moment in Liverpool. I made sure all hope was over. Bob says I shouldn"t have panicked, but then Bob had not been a toad under her harrow for two years."
"I"m very glad you panicked, since it sent you straight into our arms,"
said Norah. "If we had met you in an ordinary, stodgy way--you and Bob presenting your letter of introduction, and we saying "How do you do?"
politely--it would have taken us ages to get to know you properly.
And as it was, we jumped into being friends. You did look such a poor, hunted little soul as you came dodging across that street!"
"And you took me on trust, when, for all you know, the police might have been after me," said Tommy. "Well, we won"t forget; not that I suppose Bob and I will ever be able to pay you back."
"Good gracious, we don"t want paying back!" exclaimed Norah, wrinkling her nose disgustedly. "Don"t talk such utter nonsense, Tommy Rainham.
And just hurry up and unpack, because tea will be ready at half-past six."
"My goodness!" exclaimed the English girl, to whom dinner at half-past seven was a custom of life not lightly to be altered. "And I haven"t half unpacked, and oh, where is my blue frock? I don"t believe I"ve brought it." She sought despairingly in the trunk.
"Yes, you have--I hung it up for you in the wardrobe ages ago," said Norah. "And it doesn"t matter if you don"t finish before tea. There"s lots of time ahead. However, I certainly won"t be dressed if I don"t hurry, because I"ve to see Brownie first, and then sew on a b.u.t.ton for Jim. You"ll find me next door when you"re ready." Tommy heard her go, singing downstairs, and she sighed happily. This, for the first time for two years, was a real home.
The education of the new-chums began next morning, and was carried out thoroughly, since Mr. Linton did not believe in showing their immigrants only the pleasanter side of Australian life. Bob was given a few days of riding round the run, spying out the land, and learning something about cattle and their handling as he rode. Luckily for him, he was a good horseman. The stockmen, always on the alert to "pick holes" in a new-chum, had little fault to find with his easy seat and hands, and approved of the way in which he waited for no one"s help in saddling up or letting go his horse; a point which always tells with the man of the bush.
"We"ve had thim on this run," said Murty, "as wanted their horses led gently up to thim, and then they climb into the saddle like a lady.
And when they"d come home, all they"d be lookin" for "ud be some one to casht their reins to, the way they cud strowl off to their tay. Isn"t that so, Mick?"
"Yairs," said Mick. He was riding an unbroken three-year-old, and had no time for conversation.
After a few days of "gentle exercise," Bob found himself put on to work. He learned something of cutting out and mustering, both in cleared country and in scrub; helped bring home young cattle to brand, and studied at first hand the peculiar evilness of a scrub cow when separated from her calf. They gave him jobs for himself, which he accomplished fairly well, aided by a stock horse of superhuman intelligence, which naturally knew far more of the work than its rider could hope to do. Bob confided to Tommy that never had he felt so complete a fool as when he rode forth for the first time to cut out a bullock alone under the eyes of the experts.