Miss Grantley's Girls Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VII.

MISS GRANTLEY'S BROTHER.

MARIMOO, HOBART TOWN, December 27th, 18--.

DEAR BESSIE,--It's time you came out here instead of staying in the old country, even though you haven't learnt to make b.u.t.ter and cheese, and don't know how to bake bread, or even to make "damper" properly. The fact is, you must come; and if you like to take cla.s.ses, you can make use of your science degrees here, I can tell you, for they want "sweet girl-graduates;" and even if they have grown to be severe and exacting female professors, we take very kindly to them.

The fact is, Bess, I waited as long as I could for you to come over this side to look after me, that I might cease wandering and settle down. As you know, I've tried my hand at a good many occupations, often for the freak of the thing, but always with a reserve force for doing the right thing at last, and somehow I've mostly made bread and cheese and a little more. The gold fever was over long before I reached Australia, but I had a turn at the cradle and pan for all that, and turned up a pretty good "claim"--enough to take me on my travels afterwards. I've been out prospecting; I've had a turn in the great grazing grounds, though I didn't care to sink the little money I had in a fancy flock in the hope of turning it into a herd, or to spend my life on horseback galloping after half-wild cattle on the plains. I wasn't long "beating about the bush," though I've once or twice been out with the natives and have had a brush with the rangers, one of whom--Black Jack--carried a bullet of mine about in his shoulder for some time before he fell in a fight with the police just outside Melbourne. His skeleton's in the museum now; but the worst time I ever had was when I was driving----; but I'll tell you that another time. I meant when I began this letter to start with an announcement that ought to take your breath away, and somehow I'm as shy of saying it on paper as I should be if you were standing before me with those "clear cold eyes" of yours, that yet were always shining with love to your wild brother, though you always "looked him through." The plain truth is, I now invite you to come over here and live with _us_. Do you read that?--US. For I am--we are--_married_. Yes; a fact. And who do you think _we_ are? There's me to begin with, and who's the other party, the "Co.," should you fancy? Well, don't guess.

I'll tell you. Mary Deane. You remember how I used to sing:

"I'm sitting on the stile, Ma-ree,"

in the old house at home, when she was a little wisp of a dark-eyed la.s.sie, just thinking about going to the old farm belonging to her Uncle Deane, in Herefordshire; and how she ran away and hid herself when I wanted to say "good-bye" to her before I left. Well, her uncle made up his mind to come to this side--as you wrote me he had--and I'd nearly forgotten all about it, until one day, as I was strolling along towards the bank in Sydney, who should I come upon quite suddenly but Mr. Deane, and walking beside him a slim, elegant, bright-eyed beauty, to whom I raised my hat, not knowing who she was, till a peal of silvery laughter brought back my memory to the days of old, when we used to sit in the garden on a summer evening at Barnes, and slip down the lawn to the boat-house, that we might launch the dear old pater's wherry, and have a moonlight trip, with soft singing of part songs, to which I know I growled a villainous ba.s.s. Dear pater, had he lived I might have stayed in the old country, and tried to keep up the old place; but I fear I should have disappointed him, and so--well, all may be for the best.

Perhaps it was the remembrance of the dear balmy evenings "under the Abeles" that put me in mind of proposing a picnic, for it was the winter before last that I met the Deanes, and therefore our midsummer, and a precious hot one too I can tell you, so that all the ripe fruit, bottled beer, champagne, and everything else that was cool and slaking was at a premium.

Mr. Deane was not altogether unacquainted with Sydney. He had been for some time in the colony, and had done a good thing in cattle agency. "I landed a pretty fair commission out of one lot that I had out beyond Gomaree Flats," he said to me, "a wild lot they were too, and I bought them on spec and sold them three weeks after with my own brand upon them."

"You don't mean to say that they were at Goobong station and branded D,"

said I.

"Just so, have you seen any of 'em?"

"Why I _helped_ brand them," I cried; "I was on the station and rode out after a bull that had gone away. I must have been within a couple of miles of your place if you were at Gomaree; and--was Miss Deane with you?"

"Mary was with me, Tom Grantley," says Mr. Deane, "and I don't think you used to say 'Miss' in the old time when I knew your father."

"No; but then you see Mary wouldn't even come to say 'good-bye,'" I replied; and, as I looked, I saw the girl--she _is_ a lovely girl, Bessie, though she's now Mrs. Grantley--blush like a rose, and actually, I think, a tear stood in her eye, though she laughed again when putting her hand in mine. She said, "Forgive me, Tom; for if you and uncle are to continue friends, _I_ must be friendly with you too; so I make the first overture of reconciliation."

I felt I was a "gone c.o.o.n" if I let this sort of thing go on; so I asked them what they were doing in Sydney, dined with them the same evening, and by that day week we had made up a picnic to Parramatta, where we could have the pleasure of a boat on the salt-water creek that people there call the Parramatta River, and could have a pleasant country ramble and a dinner out in the sunshine, with the thermometer at 85 in the shade, or thereabout--capital weather for plum-pudding; but we _had_ plum-pudding and roast-beef, too, with iced champagne; the plum-pudding made beforehand and heated over a fire made of sticks in an iron skillet; the roast-beef cold, with Sydney pickle, and bottled beer from England, rather dearer than champagne, and, what was better than either, some Australian wine, made from the Reisling grape, and about as good as most of the hock we ever get in London.

Of course we had some delightful drives along the south sh.o.r.e to Port Jackson, and back to Sydney along the south-head road--a drive in which one may see most of the beauties of Sydney vegetation--the great Eucalyptus or blue gum trees, between the giant boles of which shine the glittering waters of the harbour; but there are a hundred healthy orchids, and wild flowers of varied vivid hues, though but few of them have any perfume. Parramatta is to Sydney what Richmond is to London, or what Versailles was to Paris; but it is less secluded than it once was, of course, and c.o.c.katoo Island, once the penal settlement, is less unfrequented than the Isle of Portland, where English convicts work out their sentence. This, and Shark Island, are likely places enough to attract strangers, but Parramatta was our resort on this Christmas Eve.

Nothing came of it, except that I found myself when I got back to the hotel at night, and had bidden good-bye only after there was no further pretext for staying for "another cigar," in the large, bare, cool room which Mr. Deane had hired as a sitting-room in a large house in Sydney.

The drive home had been a merry and yet a melancholy--not a sentimental one; there was a good deal of twilight about, and there was laughing--but somehow, Mary Deane and I didn't seem to find much to laugh about--I didn't, I know, for she told me they were going away to Bathurst, and I think I heard a sob, I know I felt her hand tremble when I took it in mine, and it was lucky I had been used to driving a team, for to hold whip and reins in one hand might give a hard-mouthed boring horse a chance of going at his own pace down a gully.

However, before I said my final farewells it had been settled that I was to go with Mr. Deane and Mary as far as the Bathurst Plains, for I had a little business of my own in the Blue Mountain district. We were to start in a week, and I could scarcely believe that the whole affair was other than a dream, as I sat at the open window smoking till the pinky-gray dawn of Christmas Day broke over the scrubby garden of the hotel. I had been in a sort of dream, in which the form of Mary Deane was the chief figure, but there was another less pleasing shape, which came and went in my visions in a purposeless kind of way, one which I had seen that day lounging about the landing-stage, where he pa.s.sed me first with a scowl and then with a muttered oath.

Now, I had first made his acquaintance in this wise.

One night as I was coming into Sydney, about a mile from the town I heard a sharp, sudden cry from the side of the road.

The cry came from a little "black fellow," who had been a sort of retainer of mine in the bush, and on the plains a bright active lad, as supple as a snake, and, as he used to say, the son of a chief. He was called Jacky Fishook, and was a very useful fellow out there, for he could follow a trail like a hound, could climb trees, kill game, and in fact had a good many of the savage accomplishments, and few, if any, of the vices of civilization--rather a rare thing among the natives. On my return to Sydney we had parted company, and Fishook had pa.s.sed some of his time among his own people, and had also come into town now and then to work as a light porter, or do other odd jobs. The wants of the natives are few; and Jacky, unlike some of his people, did not drink rum or other spirits, so if he earned sixpence he was able to keep it. He it was who had given a shrill shout, and as I ran across a piece of waste ground to see what was the matter, I saw him crouching on the ground, while over him stood a big bully, whom I had before seen at the door of a low grog-shop; making a vicious cut at the "n.i.g.g.e.r" with a heavy stock-whip. He was a burly, powerful fellow, and, as Jacky was unarmed and only half clad, the cut of a thong like that was bad punishment. As soon as I appeared the Maori gave a yell of satisfaction. "You know Fishook, black-fellow, sar?" he screamed. "You know, sar, Jacky not take stink-water (the native word for rum), but he give no sixpence, sar; he make for carry big thing, sar." Jacky pointed to a huge bale of hides, or something of the kind, that had been pitched on the ground. Evidently the bully had insisted on the poor fellow carrying the burden for payment to be made in the shape of a gla.s.s of rum; and, discovering this, Jacky had refused to go further.

Again the whip was raised to strike, but I caught the uplifted arm, and with an oath the fellow turned on me, wrenched away his wrist, and came at me like a bull. There was nothing for it but to let him have it, and--excuse me, Bess; you know how you used to stand by when Willie and I had a set-to--I put in my left, and followed it up with a staggerer.

He was not easily vanquished, however, though the blow drove him back three or four paces; and, before I could get within reach, he had s.n.a.t.c.hed a pistol from his pocket. I was obliged to close with him, and his weight was against me. My only chance was to grip his wrist, or I should have a bullet in me. Luckily he was giddy, and one eye had begun to swell; so that I had his arm at the very moment he pulled the trigger, and the ball went somewhere into s.p.a.ce. The tussle was a short one, for there came a quick patter of feet along the path, and two officers of the Sydney police came up.

"Hullo, Buffalo Jim!" cried one of them, "up to your tricks again. Look here, my fine fellow, if you once get into quad, you're not likely to come out for a while, for there's a pretty bit of evidence likely to be turned up when once we start. Just take yourself home, and we'll come along to see what's in that bundle. Now, then, up you come;" and in a second they had lifted the bundle on to the fellow's shoulder, and marched him on before them. "We saw it all before we came up, Mr.

Grantley," said one of the men as he pa.s.sed, "but I s'pose you won't charge him."

"No," said I. "He richly deserves all I gave him; but I don't want to be dangling for a week about the Sydney court-house."

As they went away, the fellow gave me an evil look. Jacky had vanished.

Now, I had seen this big brute again while we were at Parramatta, and I was helping Mary out of the boat at the landing-stage. He had seen me, too, and turned away with a scowl and a muttered oath; but happening to glance round afterwards, I noticed that he was watching us from behind the corner of a fence. I forgot all about him for the rest of the day; but now, at night, his ugly face and bloated form intruded upon my dreams. I couldn't account for it; perhaps it was prevision.

I had forgotten it all again by the time we were ready for our journey to Bathurst. Mr. Deane was to drive with Mary in a light trap and I was to ride, for I had a good steady horse at stable in Sydney growing fat and restive for want of exercise. So we set out and went as far as the inn at Gum Ferry on the Nepean before we made any change in our arrangements. On the second day's journey we were likely to have a long ride, and Mary was anxious for a canter over Gum Plain, and beyond the first span of the mountain, where the way is over sand, shaded on both sides by the dark thicket of the gum tree and the forest scrub. She had brought her habit with her, and as she had been taught to be a first-rate horsewoman up at her father's cattle station, I resigned the saddle, and the horse, feeling such a light weight and such a dainty hand, was off like a bird. It was good to watch her as we drove far behind; good to note her pretty figure as she came cantering back and then shot forward for a long stretch across the plain. We were approaching the sandy course--where few pa.s.sengers were seen except wagoners--and all was still and silent till we reached the fringe of forest and heard the chattering scream of a flight of green parrots. But above the chatter of the birds came another cry, and there, straight ahead of us, but beyond our power to overtake, were _two_ riders. Mary was one; the other, a big rough-looking fellow, on a powerful horse, had dashed out from the thicket, caught her horse by the rein, and was now taking it at a furious gallop. The thought flashed through my brain in a moment. It was Buffalo Jim, and this was the scoundrel's revenge. The thought was horrible. Mary was completely in the scoundrel's power, unless she could throw herself out of the saddle and defy him until we came up. At the pace they were going, to overtake them was impossible, though we urged our nag to its utmost speed, and the wheels ploughed swiftly through the dry sand. What was to be done? There straight ahead, and getting further and further,--but plainly seen in that clear sunny air,--the two horses kept up the furious pace. We could even see the brave girl lean aside, and strike with all her might at the ruffian with the light whip she carried. We could fancy his hoa.r.s.e laugh of defiance as he checked speed for a moment, and sought to wrest the whip from her hand. My head was on fire, but neither Mr. Deane nor I spoke a word; our eyes were simply fixed on the two figures before us, when suddenly there seemed to be a third--right out there in the very middle of the sunlit course. A figure like a bronze statue, which suddenly appeared as it were from the ground,--and now stood in midway, and with uplifted hand as though in warning. Would the horses ride him down? No; there was a sudden check, a scurry, a wild yell, and Buffalo Jim threw up his arms and went backward, rolling over in the sand, while Mary's horse, released, darted forward for fifty yards or so, and was then brought round. She met us half-way toward the place where the riderless horse had dashed into the forest. There in the sand lay the ruffian transfixed by a slender native spear, which had gone with unerring aim through his neck; we had to break off the point and draw the shank through. Lucky for Buffalo Jim if the wound were not poisoned. All we could do was to place him in the chaise, and for Mary to remount and keep near us. The bronze figure had vanished, as a snake might glide into the brushwood. Indeed, for a moment, when we reached the spot, I fancied I saw the glint of a fierce emu eye away in the dark leaves that hung by the bark of a mighty Eucalyptus, and I gave the _cooee_ of the native, but no response came.

Well, to make an end of this unconscionable letter, I need not tell what trouble we had when we took the wounded man to the next station, nor how we were detained to be examined and questioned. Buffalo Jim died in the prison infirmary a good while after, and though we had not forgotten the adventure, we had about ceased to think of it by the time I had settled here in Hobart Land, for the fact is there was a magnet here that I could not but follow, and another Christmas picnic on the Derwent, amidst the lovely woods and gardens that fringe a part of its banks completely settled me. The end of all which is Mary Deane became Mary Grantley, and here we are on our own lot, with very pretty farming and a capital dairy, and a good heart's welcome for you if you will only come out to us. Oh, I ought to say as a sequel that about a month after we settled down here one of the men came in and said there was a black fellow at the fence gate asking to speak to me. Out I went, and there, looking at me with a smile or rather a grin, was Jacky Fishook. "How do, sar?" said he. "Just come from Sydney, sar, to look for job. Ma.s.sa take me for man, sar? yes? Jacky, sar, good black fellow, no stink-water, sar, ride sar, fish, shoot, fetch bullocks, sar? yes."

"And then the spear, eh?" said I, frowning, "Who was it killed Buffalo Jim, you villain?"

"Buff'lo Jim, sar, bad white fellow, sar--he try kill Maori, but Maori too much not kill, sar. Jacky Fishook stupid fellow, sar--not know Maori--but Maori throw spear--yes." And there and then the muscular lithe figure was drawn up like a statue; the beady eye glaring straight forward, the arm poised as though to hurl a javelin. It was quite enough--I knew who had appeared suddenly in the sandy road that day.

Buffalo Jim had come out to hunt, and had himself been tracked down and hunted.

But Jacky Fishook stayed with us. He is at this moment cleaning up my gun; and when I go shooting to-morrow he will carry home the game--parrots if we can get nothing better.

Your affectionate brother, TOM GRANTLEY.

Even though it is now a year or two ago that we parted with Miss Grantley, and Mrs. Parmigan took over the school at the request of the parents of the junior pupils, and was joined by a lady from London with famed certificates, none of us can speak without emotion of the happy time when we sat at work in the pretty old parlour or sat under the trees in the pleasant orchard. We are not all at Barton now, for Annie Bowers is studying art abroad, and Sarah Jorring, who is "engaged," is living with her friends at Barton; but those of us who are still in the Vale go and drink tea with Mrs. Parmigan sometimes, and none of us are likely to forget our governess and the stories that she used to tell.