First in the Field Part 15

"No, Nic. That is our Australian magpie."

"Magpie?" cried Nic, forgetting his uncomfortable seat; "but magpies at home in Kent have a harsh kind of laugh."

"Like that?" said the doctor, as a loud, hoa.r.s.e chuckle arose.

"No: harsher and noisier. Was that the magpie?"

"No, Nic; that was our laughing jacka.s.s."

"What! A donkey?"

"No; there he sits, on that bare limb," cried the doctor, pointing up to a big, heavy-headed, browny-grey bird, which seemed to be watching them, with its great strong beak on one side.

Nic examined the bird carefully.

"You would not think that was a kingfisher?" said the doctor.

"No," cried Nic; "though the shape is something like, all but the tail, which is so much bigger."

"But it is a kingfisher all the same, though he does not fish as his ancestors may have done. He lives on beetles, lizards, mice, and frogs, and that sort of game. There's your flute-player again."

For the sweet, melodious, whistling notes arose once more, sounding somewhat as if a person were running the notes of a chord up and down with different variations.

"It's very sweet," said Nic.

"Yes. The colonists call it the magpie, but it is the piping crow of Australia. It is one of the earliest singers, and if we'd been here at daybreak I dare say we should have heard quite a long solo."

Farther on Nic had a good look at one of the piping crows in the black-and-white jacket which had obtained for it the familiar name of magpie; but it was far from being like that handsome bird the British magpie, with its long tail glossed with metallic reflexions of golden green and purple, and with wing feathers to match.

Two or three times over, out in the open country, the horses startled Nic by their disposition to go off at a canter, but after being checked they calmly settled down to their walking pace, which was fast enough to leave the bullock team behind; consequently Dr Braydon drew rein from time to time at the summit of some hill or ridge, so that his son might have a good view of the new land which was henceforth to be his home.

Here he pointed out the peculiar features of the landscape and its resemblance to an English park, save that, instead of the gra.s.sy land being dotted with oak, beech, elm, or fir, the trees were always what the doctor called "gum," with their smooth bark and knotted limbs, but gum trees of several varieties. Here and there a farmstead could be seen, but they were few and far between; still, where they did show, with the roughly built houses and their bark or shingle roofs, flocks of sheep and droves of cattle could be seen scattered widely over the plain.

"Did you say we should be about a week getting home?" said Nic, after one of these halts.

"Perhaps longer," said the doctor. "Everything depends on those crawling gentlemen behind. They have a heavy load: you see there is no road, and if rain comes, as it is sure to before long, the load will seem twice as heavy to the patient beasts, and I can't afford to hurry them and get them out of condition. Rain falls very seldom here, Nic; but when it does come there's no nonsense about it. There's a river on ahead which we shall have to cross."

"Then you have bridges," said Nic naively, "if you have no regular roads?"

"Bridges? No; we shall have to ford it if we were going across to-day, it would be a few inches deep; if one of our big rain storms comes, it might be forty or fifty feet. I have seen it sixty."

Nic glanced at his father.

"Simple truth, my boy," he said. "The river is in a deep trough between two ranges of hills; and if there have been rains we might be detained on the bank for days or weeks."

"And whereabouts does home lie?" asked Nic.

"Yonder," said his father, pointing toward the north-east. "The air is wonderfully clear now, and perhaps you can see what I do--that faint blue ridge that looks like a layer of cloud low down on the horizon."

"Yes, I can see it," said Nic eagerly; "but surely it won't take us a week to ride there. It looks quite close."

"Yes, in this clear atmosphere, Nic; but it is a long way off, as you will find before we get there. Of course if we could canter our thirty or forty miles a day we should soon be there, but we are an escort only.

We want to take care of the waggon."

"But couldn't the men take care of that?"

"Perhaps; but a good master looks after his valuables himself. Brookes is a pretty trusty man, but the other is a new hand, whom I have lately had from my neighbour Mr Dillon, the magistrate, and I have not tried him yet sufficiently to trust. That load contains things that will be of great value to me, things Lady O'Hara bought me: seeds and implements, guns, ammunition, powder, and endless odds and ends wanted by your mother and sisters, who cannot send into the next street to buy what they want."

"But surely in this wild, open place no one would interfere with the waggon?"

"Think not? Why, Nic, we have bushrangers--escaped convicts--beside plenty of people less desperate but more dishonest, without counting the blacks."

"Are there any of them about here?" asked Nic, with a glance round.

"Perhaps. We hardly know where they may be. You see they belong to wandering tribes which roam about in search of food. They are here to-day and gone to-morrow. We never know when they may come."

"Are they dangerous?"

"Yes and no, my boy. We always have to be on our guard, especially in such a lonely place as ours."

"But why did you go and live in such a lonely spot, father?" said Nic.

"Because the place suited me, my boy. I rode over hundreds of miles of country before I pitched upon the Bluffs and took up the land. It was beautiful, the pasture was good, and there was that more than great necessary we look for in this droughty country--a good supply of water.

I have known squatters out here lose hundreds of cattle and thousands of sheep in a dry summer, when everything is burnt up."

By this time the bullocks had dragged their load close by, and for the first time Nic stared at a black figure, dressed in a strip of cloth and a spear, walking behind the waggon.

"There's one of the blacks, father," whispered Nic, staring at the shock-headed fellow, who turned a little on one side, and displayed a short club with a large k.n.o.b at one end.

"Only the fellow who helped to load," said the doctor.

Nic looked hard, for he had not recognised the man.

"He has got rid of his shirt and trousers, Nic, for the march home.

These blacks are eager to get clothes, but it always seems a misery to them to wear anything but a bit of cloth."

"But is it never cold here?"

"Very, sometimes--frosty; but they make a bit of a shelter and a tiny fire, and linger over it till the hot sun comes out, and then forget the cold. The old people here never even built a hut, Nic--only a shelter-- a rough bit of fence."

In the middle of the day, when the sun came down with tremendous power, a halt was called beneath the shade of a gigantic gum tree, and Nic for the first time realised why this name was applied to the one great family of trees peculiar to the land, for drops of gum which had oozed out were gleaming red like carbuncles in the hot sunshine.

The doctor sprang from his horse, but Nic sat quite still.

"Dawn with you, my boy," cried his father; but, instead of obeying, Nic screwed up his face into a peculiar shape.

"I don't feel as if I could, father."

"Oh! Stiff. Down with you, boy. You must work that off."