We of the Never-Never Part 15

was rather disconcerting praise of a very particular lady friend.

A bra.s.s lamp was looked upon as a monument of solid wealth, "Him gold,"

he decided, insisting it was in the face of all denials. "Him gold. Me savey gold all right. Me live longa California long time," he said, bringing forward a most convincing argument; and, dismissing the subject with one of his Podsnapian waves, he decided that a silver-coloured composition flower-bowl in the form of a swan was solid silver; "Him sing out all a same silver," he said, making it ring with a flick of his finger and thumb, when I differed from him, and knowing Cheon by now, we left it at that for the time being.

After wandering through several trunks and gloating over blouses, and skirts, and house-linen, and old friends the books were opened up, and before the Maluka became lost to the world Cheon favoured them with a pa.s.sing glance. "Big mob book," he said indifferently, and turned his attention to the last trunk of all.

Near the top was a silver filigree candlestick moulded into the form of a Convolvulus flower and leaf--a dainty little thing, but it appeared ridiculous to Cheon's commonsense mind.

"Him silly fellow," he scoffed, and appealed to the Maluka for his opinion: "him silly fellow? Eh boss?" he asked.

The Maluka was half-buried in books. "Um," he murmured absently, and that clinched the matter for all time. "Boss bin talk silly fellow" Cheon said, with an approving nod toward the Maluka, and advised packing the candlestick away again. "Plenty room sit down longa box," he said, truthfully enough, putting it into an enormous empty trunk and closing the lid, leaving the candlestick a piece of lonely splendour hidden under a bushel.

But the full glory of our possessions was now to burst upon Cheon. The trunk we were at was half filled with all sorts of cunning devices for kitchen use, intended for the mistress's pantry of that commodious station home of past ignorant imagination. A mistress's pantry forsooth, in a land where houses are superfluous and luxuries barred, and at a homestead where the mistress had long ceased to be anything but the little missus--something to rule or educate or take care of, according to the nature of her subordinates.

In a flash I knew all I had once been, and quailing before the awful proof before me, presented Cheon with the whole collection of tin and enamel ware, and packed him off to the kitchen before the Maluka had time to lose interest in the books.

Everything was exactly what Cheon most needed, and he accepted everything with gleeful chuckles--everything excepting a kerosene Primus burner for boiling a kettle. That he refused to touch. "Him go bang," he explained, as usual explicit and picturesque in his English.

After gathering his treasure together he waddled away to the kitchen, and at afternoon tea we had sponge cakes, light and airy beyond all dreams of airy lightness, no one having yet combined the efforts of Cheon, a flour dredge, and an egg-beater, in his dreams. And Cheon's heart being as light as his cookery, in his glee he made a little joke at the expense of the Quarters, summoning all there to afternoon tea with a chuckling call of "Cognac!" chuckles that increased tenfold at the mock haste of the Quarters. A little joke, by the way, that never lost in freshness as the months went by.

At intervals during the days that followed Cheon surveyed his treasures, and during these intervals the whirr of the flour dredge or egg-beater was heard from the kitchens, and invariably the whirr was followed by a low, distinct chuckle of appreciation.

All afternoon we worked, and by the evening the dining-room was transformed: blue cloths and lace runners on the deal side-table and improvised pigeon-holes; nicknacks here and there on tables and shelves and brackets; pictures on the walls; "kent" faces in photograph frames among the nicknacks; a folding carpet-seated armchair in a position of honour; cretonne curtains in the doorway between the rooms, and inside the s.h.i.+mmering white net a study in colour effect--blue and white matting on the floor, a crimson cloth on the table, and on the cloth Cheon's "silver" swan sailing in a sea of purple, blue, and heliotrope water-lilies. But best of all were the books row upon row of old familiar friends; nearly two hundred of them filling the shelved panel as they looked down upon us.

Mac was dazzled with the books. "Hadn't seen so many together since he was a nipper"; and after we had introduced him to our favourites, we played with our new toys like a parcel of children, until supper time.

When supper was over we lit the lamp, and shutting doors and windows, shut the Sanguine Scot in with us, and made believe we were living once more within sound of the rumble of a great city. Childish behaviour, no doubt, but to be expected from folk who can find entertainment in the going to bed of fowls; but when the heart is happy it forgets to grow old.

"A lighted lamp and closed doors, and the outside world is what you will it to be," the Maluka theorised, and to disprove it Mac drew attention to the distant booming of the bells that swung from the neck of his grazing bullocks.

"The city clocks," we said. "We hear them distinctly at night."

But the night was full of sounds all around the homestead, and Mac, determined to mock, joined in with the "Song of the Frogs."

"Quart pot! Qua-rt-pot!" he croaked, as they sang outside in rumbling monotone.

"The roll of the tramcars," the Maluka interpreted gravely, as the long flowing gutturals blended into each other; and Mac's mood suddenly changing he entered into our sport, and soon put us to shame in make-believing; spoke of "pining for a breath of fresh air"; "hoped" to get away from the grime and dust of the city as soon as the session was over; wondered how he would shape "at camping out," with an irrepressible chuckle. "Often thought I'd like to try it," he said, and invited us to help him make up a camping party. "Be a change for us city chaps," he suggested; and then exploding at what he called his "tomfoolery," set the dining-net all a-quivering and shaking.

"Gone clean dilly, I believe," he declared, after thinking that he had "better be making a move for the last train."

Then, mounting his waiting horse, he splashed through the creek again, and disappeared into the moonlit grove of panda.n.u.s palms beyond it.

The waggons spelled for two days at the Warlochs, and we saw much of the "Macs." Then they decided to "push on"; for not only were others farther "in" waiting for the waggons, but daily the dry stages were getting longer and drier; and the shorter his dry stages are, the better a bullock-puncher likes them.

With well-nursed bullocks, and a full complement of them--the "Macs" had twenty-two per waggon for their dry stages--a "thirty-five-mile dry" can be "rushed," the waggoners getting under way by three o'clock one afternoon, travelling all night with a spell or two for the bullocks by the way, and "punching" them into water within twenty-four hours.

"Getting over a fifty-mile dry" is, however, a more complicated business, and suggests a treadmill. The waggons are "pulled out" ten miles in the late afternoon, the bullocks unyoked and brought back to the water, spelled most of the next day, given a last drink and travelled back to the waiting waggons by sundown; yoked up and travelled on all that night and part of the next day; once more unyoked at the end of the forty miles of the stage; taken forward to the next water, and spelled and nursed up again at this water for a day or two; travelled back again to the waggons, and again yoked up, and finally brought forward in the night with the loads to the water.

Fifty miles dry with loaded waggons being the limit for mortal bullocks, the Government breaks the "seventy-five" with a "drink" sent out in tanks on one of the telegraph station waggons. The stage thus broken into "a thirty-five-mile dry," with another of forty on top of that, becomes complicated to giddiness in its backings, and fillings, and goings, and comings, and returnings.

As each waggon carries only five tons, all things considered, from thirty to forty pounds a ton is not a high price to pay for the cartage of stores to "inside."

But although the "getting in", with the stores means much to the "bush-folk," getting out again is the ultimate goal of the waggoners.

There is time enough for the trip, but only good time, before the roads will be closed by the dry stages growing to impossible lengths for the bullocks to recross; and if the waggoners lose sight of their goal, and loiter by the way, they will find themselves "shut in" inside, with no prospect of getting out until the next Wet opens the road for them.

The Irish Mac held records for getting over stages; but even he had been "shut in" once, and had sat kicking his heels all through a long Dry, wondering if the showers would come in time to let him out for the next year's loading, or if the Wet would break suddenly, and further shut him in with floods and bogs. The horse teams had been "shut in" the same year, but as the Macs explained, the teamsters had broached their cargo that year, and had a "glorious spree" with the cases of grog--a "glorious spree" that detained them so long on the road that by the time they were in there was no chance of getting out, and they had more than enough time to brace themselves for the interview that eventually came with their employers.

"Might a bullock-puncher have the privilege of shaking hands with a lady?" the Irish Mac asked, extending an honest, h.o.r.n.y hand; and the privilege, if it were one, was granted. Finally all was ready, and the waggons, one behind the other, each with its long swaying line of bullocks before it, slid away from the Warloch Ponds and crept into the forest, looking like three huge snails with sh.e.l.ls on their backs, Bertie's Nellie watching, wreathed in smiles.

Nellie had brought to the homestead her bosom friend and crony, Biddy, and the staff had increased to five. It would have numbered six, only Maudie, discovering that the house was infested with debbil-debbils, had resigned and "gone bush." The debbil-debbils were supposed to haunt the Maluka's telescope, for Maudie, on putting her eye to the sight opening, to find out what interested the Maluka so often, had found the trees on the distant plain leaping towards her.

"Debbil-debbil, sit down," she screamed, as, flinging the telescope from her in a frenzy of fear, she found the distance still and composed,

"No more touch him, missus!" she shrieked, as I stooped to pick up the telescope. "'Spose you touch him, all about there come on quick fellow.

Me bin see him! My word him race!"

After many a.s.surances, I was allowed to pick it up, Maudie crouching in a shuddering heap the while behind the office, to guard against surprises.

Next morning she applied for leave of absence and "went bush." Jimmy's Nellie, however, was not so easily scared, and after careful investigation treated herself to a pleasant half hour with the telescope.

"Tree all day walk about," she said, explaining the mystery to the staff; and the looking-gla.s.s speedily lost in favour. The telescope proved full of delights. But although it was a great sight to see a piccaninny "come on big-fellow," nothing could compare with the joy of looking through the reversed end of the gla.s.s, into a world where great men became "little fellow," unless it were the marvel of watching dim, distant specks as they took on the forms of birds, beasts, or men.

The waggons gone, and with them Nellie's shyness, she quietly ousted Rosy from her position at the head of the staff. "Me sit down first time,"

she said; and happy, smiling Rosy, retiring, obeyed orders as willingly as she had given them. With Nellie and Rosy at the head of affairs, house-cleaning pa.s.sed unnoticed, and although, after the arrival of unlimited changes of everything, was.h.i.+ng-day threatened to become a serious business, they coped with that difficulty by continuing to live in a cycle of was.h.i.+ng days--every alternate day only, though, so as to leave time for gardening.

The gardening staff, which consisted of a king, an heir-apparent, and a royal councillor, had been engaged to wheel barrow-loads of rich loamy soil from the billabong to the garden beds; but as its members preferred gossiping in the shade to work of any kind, the gardening took time and supervision.

"That'll do, Gadgerrie?" was the invariable question after each load, as the staff prepared to sit down for a gossip; and "Gadgerrie" had to start every one afresh, after deciding whose turn it was to ride back to the billabong in the barrow.

Six loads in a morning was a fair record, for "Gadgerrie" was not often disinclined for a gossip on court matters, but although nothing was done while we were out-bush, the garden was gradually growing.

Two of the beds against the verandah were gaily flouris.h.i.+ng, others "coming on," and outside the broad pathway a narrow bed had been made all round the garden for an hibiscus hedge; while outside this bed again, one at each corner of the garden, stood four posts--the Maluka's promise of a dog-proof, goat-proof, fowl-proof fence. So far Tiddle'ums had acted as fence, when we were in, at the homestead, scattering fowls, goats, and dairy cows in all directions if they dared come over a line she had drawn in her mind's eye. When Tiddle'ums was out-bush with us, Bett-Bett acted as fence.

Johnny, generally repairing the homestead now, admired the garden and declared everything would be "A1 in no time."

"Wouldn't know the old place," he said, a day or two later, surveying his own work with pride. Then he left us, and for the first time I was sorry the house was finished. Johnny was one of the men who had not "learnt sense" but the world would be a better place if there were more Johnnies in it.

Just as we were preparing to go out-bush for reports, Dan came in with a mob of cattle for branding and the news that a yard on the northern boundary was gone from the face of the earth.

"Clean gone since last Dry," he reported; "burnt or washed away, or both."

Rather than let his cattle go, he had travelled in nearly thirty miles with the mob in hand, but "reckoned" it wasn't "good enough." "The time I've had with them staggering bobs," he said, when we pitied the poor, weary, footsore little calves: "could 'av brought in a mob of snails quicker. 'Tisn't good enough."

The Maluka also considered it not "good enough," and decided to run up a rough branding wing at once on to the holding yard at the Springs; and while Dan saw to the branding of the mob the Maluka looked out his plans.

"Did you get much hair for the mattress?" I asked, all in good faith, when Dan came down from the yards to the house to discuss the plans, and Dan stood still, honestly vexed with himself.

"Well, I'm blest!" he said, "if I didn't forget all about it," and then tried to console me by saying I wouldn't need a mattress till the mustering was over. "Can't carry it round with you, you know," he said, "and it won't be needed anywhere else." Then he surveyed the house with his philosophical eye.