"How dare you! Stand back. I thought Australian men were men, and that they didn"t insult women."
There was an uproar in the veranda, and more cries of "Shame, Steadbolt, you! ... You just git, Gumsucker Steve. We ain"t got no use for you, Micky Phayle.... Can"t you see a lady as is a lady?" sounded from the bar and parlour. It was the landlady who asked the last question. The two reprobates who had been asleep, lunged off the veranda, and made a feeble a.s.sault on Steadbolt, who still clung to the reins. The man, lashed to fury by the scorn ringing in Lady Bridget"s voice, made a last envenomed attack.
"It ain"t us GENUINE Australians that insults you.... Takes a mongrel Scotchy for that.... Say, Ladyship, just you ask your husband what a sort of an insult he"s got ready for YOU up at his Bachelor"s Quarters at Moongarr."
The words had not left his mouth when McKeith"s driving whip whizzed in the air and raised blood on the speaker"s cheek. Steadbolt dropped his hold of the roan leader"s bridle and fell back screaming imprecations.
At a touch, the buggy-horses bounded forward.
"Sit tight, Biddy," said her husband. "Up you get, Cudgee," he shouted.
The black boy leaped to the back-seat, and in a moment the buggy swerved by the bullock-dray that was drawn up a little further down the road, and the excited horses galloped past the nineteen public houses and the zinc-roofed shanties, past the new quarter of tents and whirring machinery, past the deserted shafts and desolate mullock heaps, then way out along the sandy wheel-track into the unpopulated Bush.
For the first mile scarcely a word was exchanged between husband and wife. The horses were fresh and McKeith had enough to do to keep them from bolting. Moreover, even in emotional phases, he was always silent while chewing the cud of his reflections. Bridget was thinking, too.
She had an uneasy sense of startlement, without exactly knowing why she felt startled in that inward way. It was as though some great obscene bird of flight had brushed her with its wings, and brought vaguely to her consciousness unpleasant possibilities. But presently she became interested in watching Colin"s handling of the team. She had often sat behind such a team, but never beside such a splendid whip. Impulsively she made some such remark, and he looked down at her, the hard face breaking into a smile.
"That"s good.... Wait a bit, my dear, until they"ve steadied down again.... Y"see they take a lot of driving, and I don"t want to lay an accident on top of that unholy shindy...." He spoke in jerks. The roans were inclined to "show nasty" as Moongarr Bill came abreast of them, and Wombo"s pack jingled behind. McKeith gave Moongarr Bill directions about the camp in Bush lingo, which again turned Bridget"s thoughts.
The black boy and the stockman spurred on as the roans slackened pace.
McKeith was able to relax the strain.
"My word! we scooted pretty quick out of that piece of scenery," he said. "I felt downright mad at your being let in for such a disgraceful bit of business. I hadn"t time to tell you that I"d sacked those men half an hour before. Found them in the lowest of the grog shanties, their horses not looked after, dray only half loaded, and the three of them--Gumsucker Steve was to have come and taken off our leaders when we got into broken country--thick with the Union delegates and sticking for higher wages. I paid them off and filled their places on the spot with two chaps off a wool-drive.... So I left the brutes vowing vengeance, and I suppose they thought they"d lose no time in giving me a taste of it.... Well, they"re no loss." He had been explaining things in jerks while he brought the team to an harmonious jog-trot along a piece of uneven road. "That fellow Steadbolt is a wrong "un--not good even at his own job of wood and water joey--which means, my dear, the odd cart-driving on a place--and not to be trusted within ten miles of a public house."
Lady Bridget asked suddenly:
"I want to know, Colin--what did that man mean by saying you had an insult ready for me at your Bachelor"s Quarters? What insult?"
It seemed as though blue fire leaped from McKeith"s eyes.
"Insult! Good G.o.d! Biddy you can"t hold me responsible for the foul insinuations of a beast like that. Insult YOU! my wife!"
The pa.s.sionate tenderness thrilling his voice, the honest wrath and bewilderment in his face must have silenced any doubt, had doubt existed in Lady Bridget"s mind.
"I don"t know, Colin. I don"t even know what Bachelors" Quarters mean.
Have you an army of Bachelors at Moongarr, and what do they do when they"re at home?"
He laughed. "It"s a shanty I put up for the new-chums when I"ve got any--and for the gentlemen-sun-downers that come along, and visitors that I don"t want to be bothered with at the House. There"s a woman up there...." He stopped suddenly and his face grew grim again. "That"s it, I suppose--I"m sorry I didn"t sling the whip harder and cut the fellow"s cheek open. I would if I"d thought....!"
He stopped again.
"What woman? Have I a rival? This is becoming dramatic!" Lady Bridget"s voice was amusedly ironic, but she carried her head erect. "Tell me about the woman at the Bachelors" Quarters, Colin."
"There"s nothing to tell, except that"s she"s the widow of a man who went up with me on my last Big Bight expedition, and was killed--partly through his own, and partly through my, fault. That"s why I"ve made a point of looking after her, and I built my Bachelor"s Quarters chiefly to give her a job. I thought she was too young and too good looking to be drawing grog for diggers at Fig Tree Mount--which was what she set out doing."
"I see.... So she"s young--and handsome."
"Oh, in a coa.r.s.e sort of way.... No, I wouldn"t say that; she"s rather refined for her upbringing. Anyway, Steadbolt as well as a lot of other men fell in love with her--Steadbolt was pretty well off his head over it. She wouldn"t have him at any price--naturally--and I had to give the fellow work outside the head-station to keep him away from her.
That was before I went south. Very likely he"s been trying it on again, and knew I should have to get rid of him as soon as I came back."
"Why doesn"t the woman marry again?"
McKeith shrugged. "Too jolly comfortable perhaps--or perhaps the right man hasn"t turned up. Florrie Hensor is several cuts above a malingering lout like Steadbolt. Well there, poor devil! Maybe, it"s not unnatural that I should feel a sneaking sympathy for an unsuccessful lover. That abominable lie was a bit too strong though--and before you! The man must have been downright mad from drink and fury and bitterness. It--it"s all funny--isn"t it? One of the queer sides of the Bush. Good old Bush! I am glad to be back in it again, Biddy."
He lifted his head and seemed to draw in the strong odour of the gum trees and the pure vitality of the weltering sun. His anger appeared to have left only compunction behind it. And again he begged her to forgive him for having subjected her to an experience so disagreeable.
They were on a stretch of clear road now, and the roans trotted pleasantly along. Lady Bridget took up his words.
"Yes, it"s all funny--that kind of thing--in this setting.... I never supposed that I should be howled at by a revolutionary mob in the Australian Bush.... A BAS LES ARISTOCRATS. It"s quite exciting. I think I should have enjoyed the Reign of Terror."
"Eh! You"re only frightened of four-footed beasts. If you"d lived then, you"d have gone up to the block with that smile on your lips, and the proud turn of your little head--just as I used to dream of you..."
"Of ME!"
"You don"t know--I"ll tell you some day. I remember talking to Joan Gildea once.... It"s queer.... But never mind now. D"ye like this, Biddy?"
"I love it. I wish we could drive on through the forest all day and all night--a dream drive. I think I might be able to place myself at the end of it."
"To place yourself!"
"I"ve never been able to find my true pivot inside. All my life I"ve been howling in my soul and haven"t known what I was howling for. I thought to-day that you might teach me."
"Is it only to-day that you have thought that?" he said wistfully.
"Well, anyway, I"m glad of it."
"Colin," she said abruptly, "wasn"t it funking a little bit, don"t you think--running away?"
"No--not with YOU beside me. You"ll have other opportunities for seeing whether I"ve got much of the funker in me. No doubt those brutes will give trouble some time."
"What can they do?"
"Fire my run--spoil my cattle sales--get hold of my stockmen....But I"m not so badly off as my "sheep" neighbours at Breeza Downs. They"ve got to have their shearing done.... Though I"ve had a lot of bother to-day," his face became gloomy, "and I foresee more ahead."
She asked what other sort of trouble.
"Why! there"s been no rain at Moongarr since I left it five months ago.
And Pleuro means innoculation and short sales.... Ah well! ..."
He flicked the wheelers gently. "Shake it up, Alexander! Look alive, Roxalana.... I named "em when I was reading ROLLIN"S ANCIENT HISTORY, my dear ... my dear!" He looked down at the little woman by his side with deep tenderness in his blue eyes and a smile that banished the shade from his face. "Oh, my dear, there ain"t going to be any bush worries for us this blessed afternoon and evening. It"s the poetry and romance"--he p.r.o.nounced it romance--"of the bush that"s got hold of me now. I"m just longing for us to strike the camping place--and then--just you and me together--just man and woman--alone with Nature!"
He put his hand on hers and she pressed it in return. The Woman in her thrilled to the Man in him.
Cudgee, on the hind seat with his back to them, broke the spell.
"My word, Ma.s.sa! You look out, Mithsis--big feller goanner sit down along a tree." And for the first time in her existence, Lady Bridget beheld a monster iguana dragging its huge lizard tail and turning its stately, brown crocodile head round at her from the safe vantage place of a thick gum branch.
After that, the way led off the main road, on by a less used track through wilder country. Here Wombo, the black boy, was waiting--Moongarr Bill having gone on with the pack horse to the camping place--and helped to unharness the two leaders which he drove before him ahead. The trees thickened, the buggy wheels caught on stumps. Cudgee had to get down at intervals and, with his axe, lop and clear fallen timber. Every mile the progress grew slower and the forest more lonely. No sign now of a selector"s clearing, or of any human occupation.... But there was a pack of emus hustling and shaking their big bunches of feathers like startled ballet girls.
"I feel as if part of the Zoo had been let loose," said Lady Bridget when again there bounded along in the near distance a pair of kangaroos with a little Joey kangaroo taking a lesson in locomotion behind its parents.
They were still in the gum forest, but now and then came a belt of gidia scrub--mournful trees with stiff black trunks and grey green foliage and a pale sort of wattle flower smelling like dead cattle when rain is about, as McKeith explained. But there was no rain about now, and, in truth, he would have welcomed the unpleasant odour. Perhaps it was that which made the ground so stark and bare beneath these trees where no gra.s.s will grow. The sun was lowering when they left the gidia. Out in the gum forest again, the birds were chattering before retiring to rest. All life is still in the bush at mid-day, but now there were curious scutterings among the gra.s.s tussocks, and the whirr of its insect population sounded all round. The country got prettier--swelling pastures and stony pinches and a distant outline of hills. They could see the green line of a water course.
"Plenty water sit down along a creek?" McKeith asked the black boy. But Cudgee shook his woolly head.