From Squire to Squatter Part 37

"Yes; and I am going to keep it. I am going to have help."

"Help!"

"Yes, from Him who made those stately giants of the forest and changed their stems to silvery white. He can change all things."

"Amen!" said Archie solemnly.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

AT FINDLAYSON'S FARM--THE GREAT KANGAROO HUNT--A DINNER AND CONCERT.

Gentleman Craig was certainly a strange mortal; but after all he was only the type of a cla.s.s of men to be found at most of our great universities. Admirable Crichtons in a small way, in the estimation of their friends--bold, handsome, careless, and dashing, not to say clever--they may go through the course with flying colours. But too often they strike the rocks of sin and sink, going out like the splendid meteors of a November night, or sometimes--if they continue to float-- they are sent off to Australia, with the hopes of giving them one more chance. Alas! they seldom get farther than the cities. It is only the very best and boldest of them that reach the Bush, and there you may find them building fences or shearing sheep. If any kind of labour at all is going to make men of them, it is this.

Two minutes after Craig had been talking to Archie, the sweet, clear, ringing notes of his manly voice were awaking echoes far a-down the dark forest.

Parrots and parrakeets, of lovely plumage, fluttered nearer, holding low their wise, old-fashioned heads to look and listen. Lyre-birds hopped out from under green fern-bushes, raising their tails and glancing at their figures in the clear pool. They listened too, and ran back to where their nests were to tell their wives men-people were pa.s.sing through the forest singing; but that they, the c.o.c.k lyre-birds, could sing infinitely better if they tried.

On and on and on went the cavalcade, till sylvan beauty itself began to pall at last, and no one was a bit sorry when all at once the forest ended, and they were out on a plain, out in the scrub, with, away beyond, gently-rising hills, on which trees were scattered.

The bleating of sheep now made them forget all about the gloom of the forest. They pa.s.sed one or two rude huts, and then saw a bigger smoke in the distance, which Bill told Archie was Findlayson's.

Findlayson came out to meet them. A Scot every inch of him, you could tell that at a glance. A Scot from the soles of his rough shoes to the rim of his hat; brown as to beard and hands, and with a good-natured face the colour of a badly-burned brick.

He bade them welcome in a right hearty way, and helped "the la.s.sie" to dismount.

He had met "the la.s.sie" before.

"But," he said, "I wadna hae kent ye; you were but a bit gilpie then.

Losh! but ye have grown. Your father's weel, I suppose? Ah, it'll be a while afore anybody makes such a sudden haul at the diggin' o' gowd as he did! But come in. It's goin' to be anither warm day, I fear.

"Breakfast is a' ready. You'll have a thistle fu' o' whiskey first, you men folks. Rin b.u.t.t the hoose, my dear, and see my sister. Tell her to boil the eggs, and lift the bacon and the roast ducks."

He brought out the bottle as he spoke. Both Harry and Archie tasted to please him. But Craig went boldly into battle.

"I'm done with it, Findlayson," he said. "It has been my ruin. I'm done. I'm a weak fool."

"But a wee drap wadna hurt you, man. Just to put the dust out o' your wizzen."

Craig smiled.

"It is the wee draps," he replied, "that do the mischief."

"Well, I winna try to force you. Here comes the gude wife wi' the teapot."

"Bill," he continued, "as soon as you've satisfied the cravins o'

Nature, mount the grey colt, and ride down the Creek, and tell them the new chums and I will be wi' them in half an hour."

And in little over that specified time they had all joined the hunt.

Black folks and "orra men," as Findlayson called them, were already detouring around a wide track of country to beat up the kangaroos.

There were nearly a score of mounted men, but only one lady besides Etheldene, a squatter's bold sister.

The dogs were a sight to look at. They would have puzzled some Englishmen what to make of them. Partly greyhounds, but larger, st.u.r.dier, and stronger, as if they had received at one time a cross of mastiff. They looked eminently fit, however, and were with difficulty kept back. Every now and then a distant shout was heard, and at such times the hounds seemed burning to be off.

But soon the kangaroos themselves began to appear thick and fast. They came from one part or another in little groups, meeting and hopping about in wonder and fright. They seemed only looking for a means of escape; and at times, as a few rushing from one direction met others, they appeared to consult. Many stood high up, as if on tiptoe, gazing eagerly around, with a curious mixture of bewilderment and fright displayed on their simple but gentle faces.

They got small time to think now, however, for men and dogs were on them, and the flight and the murder commenced with a vengeance. There were black fellows there, who appeared to spring suddenly from the earth, spear-armed, to deal terrible destruction right and left among the innocent animals. And black women too, who seemed to revel in the b.l.o.o.d.y sight. If the whites were excited and thirsty for carnage, those aborigines were doubly so.

Meanwhile the men had dismounted, Archie and Harry among the rest, and were firing away as quickly as possible. There is one thing to be said in favour of the gunners; they took good aim, and there was little after-motion in the body of the kangaroo in which a bullet had found a billet.

After all Archie was neither content with the sport, nor had it come up as yet to his _beau ideal_ of adventure from all he had heard and read of it. The scene was altogether noisy, wild, and confusing. The blacks gloated in the bloodshed, and Archie did not love them any the more for it. It was the first time he had seen those fellows using their spears, and he could guess from the way they handled or hurled them that they would be pretty dangerous enemies to meet face to face in the plain or scrub.

"Harry," he said after a time, "I'm getting tired of all this; let us go to our horses."

"I'm tired too. Hallo! where is the chick-a-biddy?"

"You mean Miss Winslow, Harry."

"Ay, Johnnie."

"I have not seen her for some time."

They soon found her though, near a bit of scrub, where their own horses were tied.

She was sitting on her saddle, looking as steady and demure as an equestrian statue. The sunshine was so finding that they did not at first notice her in the shade there until they were close upon her.

"What, Etheldene!" cried Archie; "we hardly expected you here."

"Where, then?"

"Following the hounds."

"What! into that mob? No, that is not what I came for."

At that moment Craig rode up.

"So glad," he said, "to find you all here. Mount, gentlemen. Are you ready, Baby?"

"Ready, yes, an hour ago, Craig."

They met hors.e.m.e.n and hounds not far away, and taking a bold detour over a rough and broken country, at the edge of a wood, the hounds found a "forester," or old man kangaroo. The beast had a good start if he had taken the best advantage of it; but he failed to do so. He had hesitated several times; but the run was a fine one. A wilder, rougher, more dangerous ride Archie had never taken.

The beast was at bay before very long, and his resistance to the death was extraordinary.

They had many more rides before the day was over; and when they re-a.s.sembled in farmer Findlayson's hospitable parlour, Archie was fain for once to own himself not only tired, but "dead beat."

The dinner was what Harry called a splendid spread. Old Findlayson had been a gardener in his younger days in England, and his wife was a cook; and one of the results of this amalgamation was, dinners or breakfasts either, that had already made the Scotchman famous.