“Isn’t it the proper thing to do?” he asked at length.
“Far from it,” replied Irralie, severely.
“But what about bushrangers?”
“Bushrangers! There are none. They are all dead and gone.”
“What about — Stingaree?”
“Stingaree! I forgot him. He’s the man who stuck up the Mount Brown gold-escort. Oh, yes, I’ve heard a lot about Stingaree.”
“I wonder what you have heard.”
“That he’s a bit of a duke — in fact, an Oxford man!”
“Would you know him by sight?”
“I shouldn’t; but, as it happens, we have a man here who would.”
“A man I shall meet to-night?”
“Oh, no! a whim-driver — the whim-driver at the far end of the last paddock — our Seven-mile. ‘ Deaf Dawson,’ the men call him. He once knew Stingaree, he says; but he hardly ever comes into the home-station. You must go out to the Seven-mile if you want to interview him, and you’ve got to do that through his ear-trumpet! He’ll tell you Stingaree never came so far south as this in his life; and I tell you he’d better not.”
“You would give him a pretty bad time, eh, Miss Villiers?”
“My word!” said Irralie.
“I’m glad to hear it,” replied the other devoutly, “for I carry that pistol solely on account of Stingaree! I wasn’t to know he drew the line at a given degree of latitude.”
“I don’t say he does,” returned the girl. “I only say he better had!”
Again they drove in silence into the night; then the moon got up in their teeth, and licked the barrels of Irralie’s fowling-piece.
“Why, you carry firearms yourself! I’d forgotten that, Miss Villiers.”
“I do; but not revolvers,” said Irralie, “and not because of Stingaree.”
“I see!” —
“But to shoot fair game,” concluded Irralie, severely. “To - day it was a fatted turkey for the great occasion of to-morrow’s Sunday dinner.”
“It is to be a great occasion, then?”
“You bet it is!” cried Irralie Villiers. “You mayn’t have heard that this station has been bought by a new chum of an Englishman with a handle to his name? But it has, though; and much we care about the handle! A beggarly younger son, that’s all he is; but if he was a lord and a duke in one it would make no difference to us! He’ll make a fine mess of it, that’s one thing sure. Fullarton his name is — the Honorable Greville Fullarton! Put that in your pipe and light it.”
“And — and what do you expect him to belike?”
“Don’t ask,” replied the girl, warmly. “Nice words couldn’t tell you. However, we shall find him at the homestead when we get in; and there are the lights.”
Her companion looked sidelong at Irralie; then, hesitating, at the constellation of lights which had burst upon them unawares; and so made up his mind.
“We shall not find him there,” said he, with a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry to confirm your worst suspicions, but the fact is, Miss Villiers, I’m the man himself!”
CHAPTER II
A BAD IMPRESSION
Who was the Hon. G. Fullarton, and what did he want with a station in New South Wales? These and kindred questions were bandied from block to block of the honored territory; but only the first was susceptible to a plain, straightforward reply.
The pedigree of the young man could be ascertained from accessible sources; his motives (when he had any) were somewhat farther to seek. Pleasure, idleness, and adventure were the gods of this reactionary offspring of a peer who was also a divine; yet the mauvais sujet of this ancient family would have been the stainless pride of many another of equal antiquity but inferior ideals. Greville Fullarton had never been bankrupt, nor party to a scandalous suit, nor a living excuse of any sort or kind for the blasphemies of the half-penny evening enemy. On the other hand, he was the impious member of a family otherwise united in piety — a goat among sheep, a wanderer, a ne’er-do-weel, and a chronic grief to good gray hairs.
How he came by the money for Arran Downs — which was purchased in a good season, when the head of sheep ran very nearly into six figures — was as great a mystery in the old country as in the new. Yet in London they told a little story, which rather lent itself to deduction, where one happened to know how little the old Earl had spent on himself, and how much he must be worth.
It was said that Mr. Greville had dropped from the clouds into his father’s town house one morning in time for prayers, but clad in Californian rags, and such boots that even the Earl could not permit him to kneel down before the servants. He had been two years away, and in all that time had written not at all. But it was said he related his adventures on this occasion with so much frankness and vivacity that the old peer was moved to lament the purposeless character of his son’s exploits rather than those exploits themselves. And here the story ends; but that same season saw the purchase of Arran Downs through London agents, and Esau started at the summer’s end for another summer in one of the few wildernesses he had yet to explore.
The day had been hot indeed for the end of October, when the thermometer rarely touches a hundred in the shade; but even at that temperature Mrs. Villiers had not rested from sorting linen, selecting napery, cleaning silver, and watching over the Chinese cook in the wattle - and - dab kitchen. All day the storekeeper had been cleaning out his store, the overseer running up fresh horses from outlying paddocks, and Mr. Villiers himself fixing new ropes on two of the whims. For the rest, Miss Villiers (as we have seen) had been following the chase, and her younger brothers and sisters a less exciting routine with their raw, strict, public-school tutor.
At Arran Downs a single note had been received from the new owner naming the day he was likely to arrive. As the hour was not mentioned, all things were ready by about the middle of the day; and by evening the feeling of the garrison expressed itself in a universal inability to sit down. The veranda was paced as though it had been a vessel’s deck — the horizon swept as though it had been the sea. At six there was open dissatisfaction, and the young Villierses, who had been decently dressed, and even partially subdued, for some hours — these young ruffians broke out, and drove their tutor in despair to the school-room, because his jurisdiction did not extend beyond those weather-board walls.
But when night set in, Mr. Villiers (a blue-eyed man with a fair beard and bad teeth) was heard to close his watch with a snap and to announce that he would wait no longer. The new owner might be given up for that night; as for Irralie, she had no business to be so late, but something could be kept hot for her. Luckily, however, they had not sat down when Irralie and the owner arrived together, evidently on the best of terms already. For Irralie introduced him, briefly explaining what had happened, but dwelling very lightly (it was noteworthy) on the incident at the clump, and never mentioning the pistol-shot at all. Fullarton shook hands all round with the utmost geniality. It was too dark in the veranda for his extremely rough exterior to be appreciated, and Mr. Villiers made his prepared speech with a glibness which he afterwards regretted.
“I must apologize, Mr. Fullarton, for being still here with my belongings; but as I didn’t know your arrangements, I thought we had better all hold on till you came. They thought so in Melbourne too. Everything is ready for you, however, and I think I may say in no bad order either.”
The new owner slapped the other on the back.
“My dear sir, I hope to goodness you aren’t thinking of deserting me? Do you expect me to run this place by myself, and without knowing how? Let things go on as they are for another year at least; then, if we must, we can talk of it again.”
In the same manner he very properly declined to take the head of his own dinner-table; and the impression was distinctly favorable until the rough shirt and ragged coat came to anchor immediately under the lamp. There fell then an embarrassed silence. Mrs. Villiers had made herself a new gown for the occasion. The tutor had saved up his tallest
collar. Everybody had made some little difference, and the condition of the Englishman was an inexplicable insult to one and all.
Heavy, excellent George Young, the overseer, was perhaps the most indignant spirit at the table. But the English tutor, Hodding by name, endured the, keenest disappointment. The overseer and the storekeeper were natives of the colony; so were the entire managerial brood. Hodding had counted upon the arrival of an even newer chum than himself; he had pictured a sufficiently taking type, in rough English tweeds and ponderous boots. The same lively fancy had painted every cornstalk green with envy; and what had happened? Jevons, the storekeeper, was kicking him under the table; honest George Young looked green, indeed, but not with envy; and the son of an Earl was eating as heartily as if he looked what he was, instead of calling to every mind the common, ruffianly, pound-a-week hand.
“There is one more thing I must apologize for,” said Mr. Villiers, a little tactlessly, before they left the table. “We hardly thought to see you before the Cup; and we expect a few folks here on Monday night, on their way down to it.”
“To the Melbourne Cup?” said the owner, with his mouth full. “Yes, I hear it’s a great race; but the turfs about the only evil I ever steered clear of.” And he continued to eat, as he had eaten from the beginning, like a half-starved man.
The manager hummed. His confession was not yet complete.
“The fact is,” he continued, “we thought it an opportunity to entertain our friends — possibly our last. To tell you the truth, we have something like a party on the day after to-morrow. When I got your letter I did think of putting it off. But, on second thoughts, that struck me as all the more reason for a general muster of such society as we can boast in these wilds. It was an opportunity for the country-side to meet you, Mr. Fullarton.”
The owner looked up aghast.
“To meet me?” he cried.
“Why, yes, to be sure. They are all most anxious to make your acquaintance. You must know that you have supplied our papers with a topic for these many weeks past.”
“But look at my clothes!” cried the other. “You must have noticed them; and I would have apologized for them before, Mrs. Villiers, had I not felt too ashamed. It is all owing to a mistake. I have nothing better in my valise. But I believe my portmanteaus are on the way up by the coach.”
“That’s all right; then they’ll be here to-morrow,” said the manager, with relief only second to that of the tutor. “And now if you’ll join me in a pipe on the veranda — for I haven’t a cigar fit to offer you — I believe the Company have furnished you with some little papers which we ought to look into together?”
All had risen from the table, and with a fortunate precipitancy the younger men had left the room. There were witnesses enough, however, of the painful flush which now suffused the features of the new owner. And Irralie was one.
“I am very much afraid,” he stammered, “that I have lost the papers you — you—”
And without finishing his sentence, he fumbled nervously in the pockets of his disreputable coat.
“Hadn’t you an overcoat?” asked Irralie, calmly.
“Yes, yes! I had!”
“Then they may be in that.”
“They were — now I think of it. But I have lost the overcoat. I — I must have left it behind me when my horse knocked up!”
“Then think no more about it,” said Villiers, instantly. “It’ll be as safe in one of these paddocks as on your own back; it’s only a question of knowing where to look for it, and that we can do at our leisure tomorrow morning.”
So there the subject dropped; but it was something more than fortunate that not one of the younger men was present; for — in fact — the three of them were engaged already, in the tutor’s school-room, upon a systematic mutilation of the new owner’s character and pretensions.
“So now, George,” said Jevons, “the joker we’ve heard so much about has come and been seen; but I’m jolly well hanged if he has conquered! These native English are an almighty rum race!”
“I’ll race him,” said George Young venomously. “And I’m bled if I come in second!”
The creature had driven in with Irralie Villiers. As yet this was his rankest offence in the nostrils of good George Young.
“I don’t care what you fellows say,” cried the fuming tutor. “That brute’s not what he says he is. I’ve been at school with ‘em, and I know!”
Jevons winked at Young.
“We know that school, eh, George? We’ve heard it before. We’ll hear of it again; but, my faith, we’ll hear a little less of the home-brewed, full-grown Englishman after this!”
“Come outside!” roared the tutor in a frenzy.
“What are you givin’ us?”
“Come behind the pines and take off your coat. I don’t care whether you hide me or whether you don’t! I know you’re the better man, but I’m not going to sit still and hear you talk like that!”
He flung open the school-room door, which looked upon a plantation of young pines, and allowed a flood of moonlight to fall upon the floor. At the same moment a couple passed the opening, walking side by side, and in striking silhouette against the moonlit trees.
“My faith!” said Jevons, softly.
“Who was it?” cried George Young, bounding to his feet. “Not Irralie and that—”
“Unrepresentative new chum?” said Jevons, with a laugh. “So help me never, old man, but it was!”
And the fight fell through after all.
CHAPTER III
THE BROKEN COLUMN
The plantation of pines formed three sides of the station yard, which, indeed, suggested a clearing on the edge of a natural forest rather than a single acre left exactly as it was found. The square was completed by the first and foremost of the homestead buildings: a long, regular structure, framed in the customary veranda, but containing (what was less conventional) the family quarters and the station store beneath one vast, white, corrugated roof. Other offices had buildings to themselves, such as the kitchen and the cook’s room, the schoolroom and those of the three young men, wash-house and dairy, iron-store and blacksmith’s forge. All these stood in hollow square, looking inward on the yard. And with the moon shining like a tempered sun on every roof, and the pine-trees whispering on all sides but one, there were worse tasks than learning the names of things from the mouth of Irralie Villiers.
“But if I am to show you the ropes,” said the girl, “I may as well show you the lot. The stables are quite separate. The stock-yards are farther still. Would you care to see them to-night?”
He cared considerably, and appeared to find refreshment in the freedom of the situation. The father had gone into the store to write a letter for the outgoing mail; the mother had beaten a retreat earlier than usual after the burden and surprises of the day. The stranger and the girl were left to their own devices, without a hint of vulgar espionage in the name of a too self-conscious propriety. The stables were inspected. A handful of oats was taken to the night-horse in the yard. The men’s hut was pointed out on rising ground still farther from the house; also a natural lawn-tennis court, marked out in a clay-pan; and here Irralie descried a racket which had been left out, and picked it up.
“So you actually play lawn-tennis up here!” exclaimed the owner.
“Actually!” repeated Irralie, with fine scorn. “Goodness! do you think we are so far behind you as all that?”
He laughed. “I beg your pardon, Miss Villiers. Still, your rackets are behind us — just a season or so.”
“What do you mean?”
“That one is bent. They are now made straight as a die!”
“I don’t believe you,” cried Irralie, warmly; and the argument ensuing was lively to the last degree. It ended, however, in laughter, swiftly followed by some consideration on the girl’s part that cut her laughter short. It was as if she had suddenly found herself in church or in the presence of death. She stood quite still in the moonlight, and
looked him very thoroughly up and down.
“You have lived here always?” he said at length, as if unconscious of her inquisitive gaze. She withdrew it by an effort.
“I wish we had! No; most of us were born in Tasmania; and that’s a lovely country, far better than this, though personally I prefer the back-blocks. There’s room for you to turn round up here!”
“I wonder what you would think of England.” —
“Not much! I should spend my time on St. Paul’s Cathedral — throwing stones into the sea! Follow me, Mr. Fullarton, there’s something else I want to show you before we go in; and we can get back this way.”
She led him to a fence, squeezed through the wires, and crossed an open space dividing them from the fringe of the same plantation which extended to the house. This space was the width of a race-course, and struck the stranger as being planted with innumerable scarecrows shorn of their last rag. He asked what they were, and Irralie answered, “Our spare rooms.”
“Your what?”
“Our spare rooms for Monday night. On Monday you will see this strip turned into a street of tents; these are the poles. When you go to a dance in the bush you stay the night. And the ladies take up all the rooms; and all the men camp out.”
“I see,” said the other; and he followed Irralie’s lead among the pines.
“You aren’t exactly keen about our party!” cried the girl, over her shoulder. “Can’t you dance?”
“Not much.”
“I thought not! But there is something else?”
“Yes; there are my clothes.”
“I understood they were coming tomorrow?”
“Well, I expect them, certainly.”
“I wonder if you do!”
And with the words the girl wheeled round and boldly regarded him by the light of the moon.
“Really, Miss Villiers, you take my breath away. Why should you doubt my word?”
He laughed, but he had colored first.
“Because I can’t help it!” replied the girl, with a little gasp which she would have given her few possessions to prevent.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 68