"Yes, Mrs Westonley!" came the reply in a boyish treble, and the owner of it wondered what made her voice sound so differently from its usual hard, sharp tone.
"Jim, come here and see my brother. He, you, and Mary, and I are all going down to the cubby house."
Suppressing a gasp of astonishment, the boy came to her to where Gerrard and she were now sitting.
"Thomas, this is Jim."
Gerrard jumped up and held out his hand.
"How are you, Jim? Glad to see you," and he smiled into the boy"s sunburnt face. "By Jove! you are a big chap for a ten year old boy. What are you going to be--soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, eh?"
"I did want to be a sailor, sir; but now I"m going to be a stockman."
Gerrard smiled again, and surveyed the boy closely. He was rather tall for his age, but not weedy, with a broad st.u.r.dy chest, and his face was almost as deeply bronzed as that of Gerrard himself, and two big, honest brown eyes met his gaze steadily and respectfully; the squatter took a liking to him at once, as he had to his sister"s child.
"Well, Jim, I"m going to stay here a week, and you"ll have to tote me around, and keep me amused--see? You and Mary between you."
"Yes, sir."
"Any fish in Marumbah River?"
"Lots and lots--two kinds of bream, Murray cod, jew fish, and speckled trout, and awful big eels."
"Ha! that"s good enough. Got fishing lines and hooks?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then bring "em along. Where is Mary, Lizzie?"
"Here she is," and Mrs Westonley brought her forward, the child"s eyes dancing with pleasure; "she was too excited to eat any breakfast, until I insisted. Thomas, they"ll worry you to death. You don"t know them."
Gerrard threw his feet up in the air, like a boy, and rapped his heels together--"I"m fit for anything--from fishing to riding bull calves, or cutting out a wild bees" nest from a gum tree a mile high. Oh! we"re going to have a high old time. I say, Mary, where"s the invalid Bunny?"
"In the saddle-room."
"Then come along, and I"ll prescribe for the poor, tailless gentleman,"
and he jumped to his feet. "We shall not be long, Lizzie--are you ready?"
"I shall be in ten minutes, Thomas," and the children looked wonderingly at her, for she actually smiled at them.
CHAPTER IV
A few days after the return of the owner of Marumbah Downs, he, with Gerrard and the black stockman, Toby, were camped on the bank of a creek about thirty miles from the head station. They had started out at daylight to muster some of the outlying cattle camps, and now after a hard day"s riding were stretching themselves out upon the gra.s.sy bank to rest, whilst Toby was lighting the fire in readiness for supper. On the top of the bank the three hardy stockhorses and a packmare, were grazing contentedly on the rich green gra.s.s, and lying at Westonley"s feet were two beautiful black-and-tan cattle dogs, still panting with their exertions. The camp had been made in a grove of mimosa trees, within a hundred yards of the clear waters of the creek, which rippled musically over its rocky bed as it sped swiftly to the sea. It wanted an hour to sunset, and already the hum of insects was in the air, and a faint cool breeze which had been stirring the green graceful fronds of the mimosas, and wafting fleecy strips of white across the blue dome above, had died away.
In the thick foliage of a cedar tree on the opposite bank, a pheasant and his mate were hopping about, uttering their harsh, rude notes; then came a whir and whistle of wings and a quick pa.s.sing shadow overhead as a flock of black duck sped over the tree tops to some sandy-banked, reed-margined pool near by.
Westonley, a big, bushy-bearded man, raised himself on one elbow, and watched them disappear; then he called to Toby to take the gun and follow.
"What"s the use of "em, Ted?" said Gerrard, as pipe in mouth, and with hands clasped under his head, he gazed upwards to the sky. "There"s two scrub turkeys in the saddle-bags; don"t be such a beastly glutton."
"You mind your own business, my little man. You like scrub turkey. I don"t. Give me a black or a wood duck, freshly killed, before all scrub or "plain" turkeys in Australia. And move yourself, you useless animal, and get one of your turkeys and pluck it while Toby is getting a duck or two. Wonderfully intelligent n.i.g.g.e.r is Toby. I"ve never yet known him to fail in getting me a duck if there was one within a mile. I say, Tommy, d"ye like crawfish? This creek here is full of "em. We"ll get some after supper."
"All right! I"m with you there," said Gerrard, as he pulled out two scrub turkeys from the saddle-bags, and then seizing one by the legs, he took aim at the broad back of his friend, and the fat, heavy bird struck him fairly in the middle of it. The big man never moved, except to carelessly put his hand out behind, and taking the turkey, began to pluck it.
"Tommy," he said, presently, "d"ye know how to make crawfish soup? It"s grand!"
"Can make it as well as you can, sonny," replied Gerrard, as he sat down and began plucking the other bird.
"Fearful lot of cubs at the "Union" now in Sydney," said the older man, meditatively. "Hate going into the place. Met the two young Arlingtons there the other day, and asked "em if they were going home to the station. "No jolly fear," said one of the cubs--they have just come back from college in England--"we"ve had enough of Portland Downs and bullock punching, branding, and all the rest of the beastly thing." "But you"ll go and see your father?" I asked. "Well, I don"t think so, you know, Mr Westonley," drawled the elder cub, "it"s a beastly long way, and takes such a devil of a time to get there--fourteen hundred miles by steamer is no joke, and we have to be back in England in five months. So the governor is coming down here to have a palaver with us." It hurt me, Tom, to hear these two youngsters talking like that, for Arlington is over seventy years of age. And they were good lads until he sent them to England to college with more money than was good for them. And it has done them harm--made cads of "em," and he viciously tugged at the wing feathers of the bird he was plucking. "Your father used to say that Oxford and Cambridge turned out more good men, and more moneyed sn.o.bs into the world than all the other colleges in the universe."
"Daresay," said Tom Gerrard, carelessly, as he began a surgical operation on his turkey. "I have heard my father say that old Arlington, who was one of the best of the old time squatters, made a mistake in sending those two boys home with unlimited money and credit. I suppose they"ll turn out rotters."
"Most likely. And Arlington--by thunder, can"t that old fellow of seventy ride through scrub--thinks that they will take his place on Portland Downs when he dies, and be a credit to the colony. _I_ wouldn"t have "em on Marumbah as jackeroos, at a pound a week. But yet there is good stuff in them, Tom, and good English blood--the best in the world.
Hallo! this turkey has eggs; just the very thing for the crawfish soup to-morrow."
Presently two shots rang out in quick succession.
"Toby has got on to "em," said Westonley; "how do you cook black duck, freshly-killed, sonny, when you"re camping out?"
"Grill "em."
"The whole carca.s.s?"
"Yes."
"Well, you must have degrading, greedy customs up in Queensland. Why, the only part--but there, I"ll show you presently when Toby comes back.
Tommy!"
"Yes."
"This sort of thing is all right, isn"t it?" and the big man waved his great arm vaguely around his head.
"Yes, it"s as fine a bit of country as there is anywhere in Australia,"
replied the younger man, who knew how devoted his companion was to Marumbah. "In fact it is all good country on Marumbah. I wish my run was half as good. Still I"ve nothing to grumble at. There are five thousand cattle on Ocho Rios now, and it will carry another two thousand easily."
Presently Toby appeared carrying three ducks, which he handed to his master, who felt them approvingly. "They"re all right, Toby. Go and look to your fire. Now, Tom, my son, I"ll show you the only way to fix up a black duck quickly, and correctly as well." Plucking the thick coating of feathers off the underneath half of a bird from the lower part of the neck down, he made a deep, sweeping curve with his sheath knife, removed the entire breast denuded of plumage, and then threw the rest to the dogs. A second bird was done the same way, and the two portions were then skewered through with a piece of hard, green wood, sprinkled with salt, and handed to the black boy, who soon had them frizzling merrily over a glowing fire.
Gerrard nodded approval. "Quick, but wasteful, old man. You would never do for a cook in a well-regulated household." Then cutting off a large piece of the turkey, he skewered it in the same manner, and hung up the rest for Toby to eat.
Night came swiftly, and, as the two friends ate their supper, and drank their strong "billy" tea, the stars came out, and the heavy dew began to fall upon the gra.s.s. Spreading their blankets under the mimosas, they lit their pipes, and with their saddles for pillows, began to discuss various matters--the past day"s work, the price of fat cattle in Melbourne, the late drought in South Australia, and such other all-important subjects to Australian pastoralists.
Then Gerrard, after describing some of his experiences and troubles with the wild blacks on Cape York Peninsula where his station, "Ocho Rios,"
was situated, said:
"By the way, Ted. That was a curious thing that you should come across that youngster Jimmy, just through having a yarn with a sailor on board the _Balclutha_."