From Squire to Squatter Part 35

"Yes," said Etheldene, "and it's funny."

"What did you come for, Bill? Your horse looks a bit jaded."

"To invite you all to the hunt. Findlayson's compliments, and all that genteel nonsense; and come as many as can. Why, the kangaroos, drat 'em, are eating us up. What with them and the dingoes we've been having fine times, I can tell ye!"

"Well, it seems to me, Bill, your master is always in trouble. Last year it was the blacks, the year before he was visited by bushrangers, wasn't he?"

"Ye-es. Fact is we're a bit too far north, and a little too much out west, and so everything gets at us like."

"And when is the hunt?"

"Soon's we can gather."

"I'm going for one," said Etheldene.

"What _you_, Miss?" said Hurricane Bill. "You're most too young, ain't ye?"

The girl did not condescend to answer him.

"Come, sir, we'll ride on," she said to Archie.

And away they flew.

"Depend upon it, Bill, if she says she is going, go she will, and there's an end of it."

"Humph!" That was Bill's reply. He always admitted he had "no great fancy for womenfolks."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

ROUND THE LOG FIRE--HURRICANE BILL AND THE TIGER-SNAKE--GENTLEMAN CRAIG'S RESOLVE.

Kangaroo driving or hunting is one of the wild sports of Australia, though I have heard it doubted whether there was any real sport in it.

It is extremely exciting, and never much more dangerous than a ride after the hounds at home in a rough country.

It really does seem little short of murder, however, to surround the animals and slay them wholesale; only, be it remembered, they are extremely hard upon the herbage. It has been said that a kangaroo will eat as much as two sheep; whether this be true or not, these animals must be kept down, or they will keep the squatter down. Every other species of wild animal disappears before man, but kangaroos appear to imagine that human beings were sent into the bush to make two blades of gra.s.s grow where only one grew before, and that both blades belong to them.

The only people from Burley New Farm who went to the Findlayson kangaroo drive were Harry, Archie, and Etheldene, and Craig to look after her.

Me. Winslow stopped at home with Bob, to give him advice and suggest improvements; for he well knew his daughter would be safe with Gentleman Craig.

It was a long ride, however, and one night was to be spent in camp; but as there was nothing to do, and nothing in the shape of cattle or sheep to look after, it was rather jolly than otherwise. They found a delightful spot near a clear pool and close by the forest to make their pitch on for the night.

Hurricane Bill was the active party on this occasion; he found wood with the help of Harry, and enough of it to last till the morning. The beauty, or one of the beauties, of the climate in this part of Australia is, that with the sun the thermometer sinks, and the later spring and even summer nights are very pleasant indeed.

When supper was finished, and tea, that safest and best of stimulants, had been discussed, talking became general; everybody was in good spirits in the expectation of some fun on the morrow; for a longish ride through the depth of that gloomy forest would bring them to the plain and to Findlayson's in time for a second breakfast.

Hurricane Bill told many a strange story of Australian life, but all in the way of conversation; for Bill was a shy kind of man, and wanted a good deal of drawing-out, as the dog said about the badger.

Archie gave his experiences of hunting in England, and of shooting and fishing and country adventure generally in that far-off land, and he had no more earnest listener than Etheldene. To her England was the land of romance. Young though she was, she had read the most of Walter Scott's novels, and had an idea that England and Scotland were still peopled as we find these countries described by the great wizard, and she did not wish to be disillusioned. The very mention of the word "castle," or "ruin," or "coat of mail," brought fancies and pictures into her mind that she would not have had blotted out on any account.

Over and over again, many a day and many a time, she had made Archie describe to her every room in the old farm; and his turret chamber high up above the tall-spreading elm trees, where the rooks built and cawed in spring, and through which the wild winds of winter moaned and soughed when the leaves had fallen, was to Etheldene a veritable room in fairyland.

"Oh," she said to-night, "how I should love it all! I do want to go to England, and I'll make father take me just once before I die."

"Before ye die, miss!" said Hurricane Bill. "Why it is funny to hear the likes o' you, with all the world before ye, talkin' about dying."

Well, by-and-by London was mentioned, and then it was Harry's turn. He was by no means sorry to have something to say.

"Shall I describe to you, Miss Winslow," he said, "some of the wild sights of Whitechapel?"

"Is it a dreadfully wild place, Mr Brown?"

"It is rather; eh, Johnnie?"

"I don't know much about it, Harry."

"Well, there are slums near by there, miss, that no man with a black coat and an umbrella dare enter in daylight owing to the wild beasts.

Then there are peelers."

"What are peelers? Monkeys?"

"Yes, miss; they are a sort of monkeys--blue monkeys--and carry sticks same as the real African ourang-outangs do. And can't they use them too!"

"Are they very ugly?"

"Awful, and venomous too; and at night they have one eye that shines in the dark like a wild cat's, and you've got to stand clear when that eye's on you."

"Well," said Etheldene, "I wouldn't like to be lost in a place like that. I'd rather be bushed where I am. But I think, Mr Brown, you are laughing at me. Are there any snakes in Whitechapel?"

"No, thank goodness; no, miss. I can't stand snakes much."

"There was a pretty tiger crept past you just as I was talking though,"

she said with great coolness.

Harry jumped and shook himself. Etheldene laughed.

"It is far enough away by this time," she remarked. "I saw something ripple past you, Harry, like a whip-thong. I thought my eyes had made it."

"You brought it along with the wood perhaps," said Craig quietly.

"'Pon my word," cried Harry, "you're a lot of Job's comforters, all of you. D'ye know I won't sleep one blessed wink to-night. I'll fancy every moment there is a snake in my blanket or under the saddle."

"They won't come near you, Mr Brown," said Craig. "They keep as far away from Englishmen as possible."

"Not always," said Bill. "Maybe ye wouldn't believe it, but I was bitten and well-nigh dead, and it was a tiger as done it. And if I ain't English, then there ain't an Englishman 'twixt 'ere and Melbourne.

See that, miss?" He held up a hand in the firelight as he spoke.

"Why," said Etheldene, "you don't mean to say the snake bit off half your little finger?"

"Not much I don't; but he bit me _on_ the finger, miss. I was a swagsman then, and was gathering wood, as we were to-night, when I got nipped, and my chum tightened a morsel of string round it to keep the poison away from the heart, then he laid the finger on a stone and chopped it off with his spade. Fact what I'm telling you. But the poison got in the blood somehow all the same. They half carried me to Irish Charlie's hotel. Lucky, that wasn't far off. Then they stuck the whiskey into me."