As he searched in his pockets, I noticed that his eye had quite recovered, though there was still a slight mark on his cheek. He handed me a tiny morocco case, which on being opened disclosed a costly ring. I have about as much idea of the prices of things as a turkey would have.
Perhaps that ring cost thirty pounds or possibly fifty guineas, for all I know. It was very heavy, and had a big diamond supported on either side by a large sapphire, and had many small gems surrounding it.
"Let me see if it fits," he said, taking my hand; but I drew it away.
"No; don"t you put it on. That would make us irrevocably engaged."
"Isn"t that what we intend to be?" he said in a tone of surprise.
"Not just yet; that is what I want to say to you. We will have three months" probation to see how we get on. At the end of that time, if we manage to sail along smoothly, we"ll have the real thing; until then we will not be any more than we have been to each other."
"But what am I to do in the meantime?" he asked, with amus.e.m.e.nt curving the corners of his mouth.
"Do! Do the usual thing, of course; but don"t pay me any special attentions, or I"ll be done with you at once."
"What"s your idea for this?"
"It is no use making fools of ourselves; we might change our minds."
"Very well; so be it," he said laughing. "I might have known you would have things arranged different from any other girl. But you"ll take the ring and wear it, won"t you? Let me put it on."
"No; I won"t let you put a finger on me till the three months are up.
Then, if we definitely make up our minds, you can put it on; but till then, don"t for the life of you hint by word or sign that we have any sort of an arrangement between us. Give me the ring and I"ll wear it sometimes."
He handed it to me again, and I tried it on. It was a little large.
Harold took it, and tried to put it on one of his fingers. It would fit on none but the very top of his little finger. We laughed heartily at the disparity in the size of our hands.
"I"ll agree to your bargain," he said. "But you"ll be really engaged to me all the same.`
"Yes; under those conditions. Then it will not matter if we have a tiff.
We can part, and no one will be the wiser."
On my suggesting that it was now time to go to the house, he swung himself down by a branch and turned to a.s.sist me. Descending from that tree was a feat which presented no difficulties to me when no one was by, but now it seemed an awkward performance.
"Just lead your horse underneath, so that I can get on to his back, thence to the ground quite easily," I said.
"No fear! Warrigal wouldn"t stand that kind of dodge. Won"t I do? I don"t think your weight will quite squash me," he returned, placing himself in leap-frog position, and I stepped on to his back and slid from there to the ground quite easily.
That afternoon, when leaving the house, I had been followed by one of the dogs, which, when I went up the willow-tree, amused himself chasing water lizards along the bank of the creek. He treed one, and kept up a furious barking at the base of its refuge. The yelping had disturbed grannie where she was reading on the veranda, and coming down the road under a big umbrella to see what the noise was about, as luck would have it she was in the nick of time to catch me standing on Harold Beecham"s back. Grannie frequently showed marked displeasure regarding what she termed my larrikinism, but never before had I seen her so thoroughly angry. Shutting her umbrella, she thrust at me with it, saying, "shame!
shame! You"ll come to some harm yet, you immodest, bold, bad hussy! I will write to your mother about you. Go home at once, miss, and confine yourself in your room for the remainder of the day, and don"t dare eat anything until tomorrow. Spend the time in fasting, and pray to G.o.d to make you better. I don"t know what makes you so forward with men. Your mother and aunt never gave me the slightest trouble in that way."
She pushed me from her in anger, and I turned and strode housewards without a word or glancing behind. I could hear grannie deprecating my conduct as I departed, and Harold quietly and decidedly differing from her.
From the time of my infancy punishment of any description never had a beneficial effect upon me. But dear old grannie was acting according to her principles in putting me through a term of penance, so I shut myself in my room as directed, with goodwill towards her at my heart. I was burning with shame. Was I bold and immodest with men, as accused of being? It was the last indiscretion I would intentionally have been guilty of. In a.s.sociating with men I never realize that the trifling difference of s.e.x is sufficient to be a great wall between us. The fact of s.e.x never for an instant enters my head, and I find it as easy to be chummy with men as with girls: men in return have always been very good, and have treated me in the same way.
On returning from her walk grannie came to my room, brought me some preachy books to read, and held out to me the privilege of saying I was sorry, and being restored to my usual place in the society of the household.
"Grannie, I cannot say I am sorry and promise to reform, for my conscience does not reproach me in the least. I had no evil--not even a violation of manners--in my intentions; but I am sorry that I vexed you," I said.
"Vexing me is not the sinful part of it. It is your unrepentant heart that fills me with fears for your future. I will leave you here to think by yourself. The only redeeming point about you is, you do not pretend to be sorry when you are not."
The dear old lady shook her head sorrowfully as she departed.
The afternoon soon ran away, as I turned to my bookcase for entertainment and had that beautiful ring to admire.
I heard them come in to tea, and I thought Harold had gone till I heard uncle Jay-Jay address him:
"Joe Archer told me you ran into a clothes-line on race-night, and ever since then mother has kept up a daddy of a fuss about ours. We"ve got props about a hundred feet long, and if you weren"t in the know you"d think we had a telegraph wire to old St Peter up above."
I wondered what Harold thought of the woman he had selected as his future wife being shut up for being a "naughty girl". The situation amused me exceedingly.
About nine o"clock he knocked at my window and said:
"Never mind, Syb. I tried to get you off, but it was no go. Old people often have troublesome straitlaced ideas. It will blow over by tomorrow."
I did not answer; so he pa.s.sed on with firm regular footfall, and presently I heard his horse"s hoof-beats dying away in the darkness, and the closing and locking of doors around me as the household retired for the night.
During the following fortnight I saw Harold a good many times at cricket-matches, hare-drives, and so forth, but he did not take any particular notice of me. I flirted and frolicked with my other young men friends, but he did not care. I did not find him an ardent or a jealous lover. He was so irritatingly cool and matter-of-fact that I wished for the three months to pa.s.s so that I might be done with him, as I had come to the conclusion that he was barren of emotion or pa.s.sion of any kind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SWEET SEVENTEEN
Monday arrived--last day of November and seventeenth anniversary of my birth--and I celebrated it in a manner which I capitally enjoyed.
It was the time of the annual muster at c.u.mmabella--a cattle-station seventeen miles eastward from Caddagat--and all our men were there a.s.sisting. Word had been sent that a considerable number of beasts among those yarded bore the impress of the Bossier brand on their hides; so on Sunday afternoon uncle Jay-Jay had also proceeded thither to be in readiness for the final drafting early on Monday morning. This left us manless, as Frank Hawden, being incapacitated with a dislocated wrist, was spending a few weeks in Gool-Gool until he should be fit for work again.
Uncle had not been gone an hour when a drover appeared to report that twenty thousand sheep would pa.s.s through on the morrow. Gra.s.s was precious. It would not do to let the sheep spread and dawdle at their drovers" pleasure. There was not a man on the place; grannie was in a great stew; so I volunteered my services. At first she would not hear of such a thing, but eventually consented. With many injunctions to conduct myself with proper stiffness, I started early on Monday morning. I was clad in a cool blouse, a holland riding-skirt, and a big straw hat; was seated on a big bay horse, was accompanied by a wonderful sheep-dog, and carried a long heavy stock-whip. I sang and cracked my stock-whip as I cantered along, quite forgetting to be reserved and proper. Presently I came upon the sheep just setting out for their day"s tramp, with a black boy ahead of them, of whom I inquired which was the boss. He pointed towards a man at the rear wearing a donkey-supper hat. I made my way through the sheep in his direction, and asked if he were in charge of them. On being answered in the affirmative, I informed him that I was Mr Bossier"s niece, and, as the men were otherwise engaged, I would see the sheep through.
"That"s all right, miss. I will look out that you don"t have much trouble," he replied, politely raising his hat, while a look of amus.e.m.e.nt played on his face.
He rode away, and shouted to his men to keep the flock strictly within bounds and make good travelling.
"Right you are, boss," they answered; and returning to my side he told me his name was George Ledwood, and made some remarks about the great drought and so on, while we rode in the best places to keep out of the dust and in the shade. I asked questions such as whence came the sheep?
whither were they bound? and how long had they been on the road? And having exhausted these orthodox remarks, we fell a-talking in dead earnest without the least restraint. I listened with interest to stories of weeks and weeks spent beneath the sun and stars while crossing widths of saltbush country, mulga and myall scrubs, of encounters with blacks in Queensland, and was favoured with a graphic description of a big strike among the shearers when the narrator had been boss-of-the-board out beyond Bourke. He spoke as though well educated, and a gentleman--as drovers often are. Why, then, was he on the road? I put him down as a scapegrace, for he had all the winning pleasant manner of a ne"er-do-well.
At noon--a nice, blazing, dusty noon--we halted within a mile of Caddagat for lunch. I could have easily ridden home for mine, but preferred to have it with the drovers for fun. The men boiled the billy and made the tea, which we drank out of tin pots, with tinned fish and damper off tin plates as the completion of the menu, Mr Ledwood and I at a little distance from the men. Tea boiled in a billy at a bush fire has a deliciously aromatic flavour, and I enjoyed my birthday lunch immensely. Leaving the cook to collect the things and put them in the spring-cart, we continued on our way, lazily lolling on our horses and chewing gum-leaves as we went.
When the last of the sheep got off the Caddagat run it was nearing two o"clock.
Mr Ledwood and I shook hands at parting, each expressing a wish that we might meet again some day.
I turned and rode homewards. I looked back and saw the drover gazing after me. I waved my hand; he raised his hat and smiled, displaying his teeth, a gleam of white in his sun-browned face. I kissed my hand to him; he bowed low; I whistled to my dog; he resumed his way behind the crawling sheep; I cantered home quickly and dismounted at the front gate at 2.30 p.m., a dusty, heated, tired girl.
Grannie came out to question me regarding the s.e.x, age, condition, and species of the sheep, what was their destination, whether they were in search of gra.s.s or were for sale, had they spread or eaten much gra.s.s, and had the men been civil?