Chapter Twenty One.
A Day’s Fishing.
Nic felt uncomfortable. There was something fascinating about being in company with a man who knew so much of the wild nature of his country; but then the man was a convict—he had been warned against him—and a companion that the doctor would not approve. But still, somehow or other, the boy was constantly finding himself in Leather’s company, for the man was as much drawn to Nic as he was to the convict.
The consequence was that they were often together out in the wilder parts of the doctor’s great estate.
One day, after a hint from his father, consequent upon his saying that he was going to explore the gully by the waterfall, he had taken the old fishing-rod and line from where it hung upon two hooks in the kitchen—a rod the doctor had used in old trout and salmon-fishing days, and had brought over on the chance of wanting, but had never found time to use.
“That gully is very beautiful higher up, Nic, and I have seen plenty of fish in the deep parts, gliding about among the tree roots and old trunks that have been washed down in the floods and got wedged in. I should certainly take the rod. The men tell me they are capital eating, but I have never tried.”
“We had a dish one day, father, when you were out,” said Janet.
“How did you get them?” asked the doctor.
“Samson brought them in—a basketful,” cried Hilda.
“Then you had better ask old Sam what he baited with, and take your bait accordingly.”
“Yes, father,” said the boy.
“Take the biggest basket, Nic,” said Hilda mischievously.
“Ah, you think I shan’t catch any,” said her brother, nodding his head; “but you’ll see.”
The rod was dusty, but good and strong, and in the bag the doctor pointed out there were plenty of good new hooks and lines; so leaving them ready, Nic went down the garden to where he expected to find old Sam.
Sure enough there he was hoeing away, and he stopped and wiped his perspiring face upon his arm as the boy came up.
“That’s right, sir,” he cried. “Glad to see you here. I want you to take a bit more hinterest in my garden. See they taters: ain’t they getting on? Look at my peas and beans too. I calls they a sight, I do. Make some o’ they gardeners in Old England skretch their wigs and wish they could grow things like ’em.”
“Beautiful, Sam; but—”
“There’s cauliflowers too, sir: ain’t they splendid?”
“Couldn’t be better, Sam; but—”
“Try my peas, sir.” Pop! “There’s a pod. Dozen fine uns, just as if they was a row o’ green teeth laughing at you.”
“Deliciously tender, Sam; but—”
“It’s the sun, Master Nic; it’s the sun,” said the old man, who was too much wrapped up in his subject to heed the boy’s remarks. “Sun’s a scarce article at home, but here you gets it all day long, and it’s the clouds is scarce. Why, you know summer at home, where the skies seem all like so much sopping wet flannel being squeezed; and not a sign o’ sunshine for six weeks. What’s to grow then?”
“Nothing, I suppose, Sam; but—”
“Of course you wants the water, sir. More sun you gets more water you wants, and that’s why I tiddles it all along through the garden from up above yonder, just ketching it above where it comes over the waterfall.”
“Yes, waterfall, Sam,” cried Nic heartily. “I say, didn’t you catch a lot of fish up there somewhere and bring home one day when my father was out?”
“To be sure I did,” said the old man, now beginning to lend an ear.
“That’s right. I want to catch some too.”
“You’d ketch ’em then, my lad. There’s lots on ’em.”
“Tell me how you caught them. What did you use for bait?”
“Shovel,” said the old man, grinning.
“What?”
“And peckaxe.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Why, it’s plain enough, sir. It was when I was turning a hole into a sort o’ ressywar to supply the garden—irrigglygate it, the master said, but I calls it watering.”
“But I was talking about the fish, Sam.”
“I know, sir; so was I. ‘How did you ketch ’em?’ says you. ‘Shovel,’ says I. I was making a place beyond the waterfall, and they swimmed in a hole there, where they’d got and couldn’t get out again. So I makes a dyke with the peck and turns the water off and then ladles the fish out with the shovel. Two basketsful there was. One I took indoors for the ladies, and t’other we ate; and Brooky put away so many they made him queer for some days. But they didn’t hurt me.”
“But I wanted to fish for them with a rod and line.”
“Oh–h–oh!” cried the old man. “You won’t get many that-a-way. P’r’aps it would be best for you though. It’s nation hard work pecking and digging, making dams and gullies among the rocks when the sun’s hot.”
“But I want some bait.”
“Ay, you’ll want some bait. We used to ketch eels at home with a big wum. There’s lots here—whackers, some on ’em. Shall I get you a few?”
“Yes, do, please.”
“So I will, Master Nic—barrowload if you like. You get me an old canister. There’ll be some nice fat uns down aside where I grows my cowcumbers. Ah! I never thought, when I got digging ’em out o’ the side of the cowcumber beds at home, I should ever get making on ’em out here, t’other side o’ the world.”
Nic fetched a bag instead of a canister, and soon after stood ready to start.
“You go same way as I took yer that night, Master Nic, and then work your way up for a hour or so, and all under they tree-ferns you’ll find pools and pools with lots o’ fish in ’em; but I don’t know how you’re going to get on with that long thin clothes-prop of a thing. But, there, you’re a gen’leman, and I s’pose you knows best.”
“Well, I shall try with it, Sam,” said Nic, laughing.
“Ay, sir, do, and good luck to you. Now I’ll get back to my hoeing.”
Nic shouldered his rod, and with his basket in his hand he left the garden, went round by the wooden building set apart for the men, and then struck across the open ground for the gully, where he soon came upon the tree-bridge he had crossed that moonlight night in company with old Sam; and he could not help hesitating for a few moments as he looked down into the narrow, dark rift, along which the water was rushing far below, while the noise of the waterfall was hollow, reverberating, and strange.
Nic took a long breath, and looked at the tree, which had been felled so that it tumbled right across the rift, and then worked with an adze so as to make a level surface about as wide as an ordinary plank, the lower branches being left on at the sides of the trunk and beneath.
He drew another deep breath, and noted that if he fell, unless he caught at one of these hanging branches, checked himself and managed to climb back, he must drop all that tremendous depth into the black-looking pool of water below.
He drew a third deep breath, and thought that if he had known what the place was like, old Sam would never have got him across, that first night of his coming.
Then he took another long, deeper breath than ever, and said to himself:
“If that were a plank laid flat upon the ground I could hop along it upon one leg, so it is only cowardice to hesitate.”
The next minute he was across, and walking along the other side of the ferny gully, to stop by the waterfall and admire the beauty of the glassy water as it glided over the rocks and fell down into the thick mist, which rose like a cloud toward the overhanging mosses and ferns.
But though the place was attractive enough to have kept him there for hours, and he wondered why he had not come to have a good look at it sooner, he felt that if he meant to catch any fish that day he must be stirring.
There was a well-trodden path along by the river, which beyond the waterfall ran on in a continuation of the gully but here the walls opened out rapidly, till a few hundred yards above it became a lovely little sunny valley, with rocky masses piled near the bed of the little river, made beautiful by the abundant growth. The ferns were much bigger than any he had yet seen, and the path wound in and out in many a zigzag, now toward the sloping sides of the ravine, now toward the sparkling, torrent-like stream, over which drooped many a bough, as if for the sunshine to rain through in a silver shower upon the water beneath, which flashed gloriously where the bright rays fell.
“I don’t wonder at father choosing this place,” thought Nic. “It grows more beautiful every way one goes.”
He must have wandered and climbed in and out for a couple of miles before he grasped why it was that the path was so well beaten. A moist spot in a shady part, where the river was just upon his right, showed this, for the narrow track was printed all over by the hoofs of sheep, and he knew now that the footpath was their work, made when in hot weather they had selected the moist shades for grazing; while at a turn a few hundred yards farther on he had an indorsement of his surmise, for the slopes of the valley had grown less abrupt, and as far as he could see one side was dotted with creamy-white fleeces.
And now in the more level ground the torrent had become a swift, bright stream, bubbling and rippling here, swirling round in eddies there, and again becoming dark and deep-looking.
He gazed down into the transparent water, but his research was not rewarded by the sight of dark, gliding forms with sinuous, waving tails. Still, though no scaly prizes offered themselves for capture, there were plenty of other objects to attract him. Every now and then some beautiful butterfly flitted across the water, and twice had he paused to gaze with pleasant vexation at a lovely streak of wavy blue, as a kingfisher darted from its perch to fly up the stream.
“Well, I do call this tiresome,” he cried, taking his fishing-rod from one shoulder to change it to the other. “If this had been my gun, you wouldn’t have shown yourselves.”
This was addressed to a little flock of small green birds which flew whistling and chattering more than chirping up the slope toward the level land above.
“I dare say those are the little green parrots Leather talked about.”
Twice more he had capital chances to obtain specimens,—one being at some half-dozen birds, which seemed to be all pink except their snowy heads; the next time at a couple more in a tree. These did not fly till he was close enough to see that they were bright with bronze and green and red.
“Why, they must be pigeons,” he said, as they darted off. “Well, I suppose one may see birds of any colour now.”
At last!
He had reached an ideal spot, where one side of the river was dammed by a tangled mass of tree trunks which must have been brought down by some flood, to get jammed, and then gradually be stripped by the action of the water, till only the stems and larger branches were left; while on his side there was a dark, tempting-looking pool of water, which he approached cautiously, after laying down his rod, and then crawling toward it, gradually looked over the sharp, rocky edge of the river into the sunlit depths, to see dark bodies in slow motion some feet below sailing here and there to capture the tit-bits brought down by the stream.
Nic’s eyes glistened as he drew back as cautiously as he had approached.
“This looks like real fishing,” he said to himself, as he thought of the unsatisfactory sport he had had at home at the various ponds in the neighbourhood of the Friary, when a farmer gave them leave to go. “Wouldn’t some of the boys like to be here. I shouldn’t be surprised if this place has never been fished before. My word! they ought to bite.”
Such uneducated fish certainly ought to have bitten; but though Nic approached the side again cautiously, keeping well back out of sight, and after carefully covering his hook with a worm, dropped it without a splash in a likely place, and then in a more likely one, and again and again into other spots which seemed each of them more likely than the last, not a bite did he get!
He was patient, too. He put on fresh baits, tried all over the pool, dropped in his worm so that it might be washed from the stream into the still, dark water, and sink among the fish.
Still there was not the sign of a bite.
“They must all have gone away,” thought Nic, just as there was a burst of sharp screams from a flock of cockatoos, which, like the other birds, seemed wilder here in the moist shades than he had found them high up on the park-like downs near the great mountain gorge.
He crept upon his chest cautiously once more to get his eyes just over the sharp rock edge of the pool, to look down into the depths, fully convinced that he would not see a fish; but to his surprise there was quite a shoal of a goodly size slowly sailing about, and after a few moments he was able to make out that they were close by the bait, which lay at the bottom, moving slowly, while one of the largest fish was certainly looking at it.
“Bother!” muttered Nic, as he looked round about and thought of old Sam’s style of fishing. “Well, one can’t catch these with a shovel and a pickaxe. No one could bale out this pool.”
“Having bad luck, sir?” said a deep voice; and Nic started up to find Leather standing close behind.
Chapter Twenty Two.
A Woolly Patient and a Scare.
The man had approached over the soft moss unheard, though Nic had had warning of his coming from the cockatoos, which had shrieked out their alarm notes as he came down from among the sheep.
“Why, Leather, I did not hear you coming,” said Nic, half annoyed by the interruption.
“I suppose not, sir. You were too intent. Don’t they bite?”
“No, not a bit,” said Nic gruffly; and to himself, “I wish he’d go.”
“What are you fishing with, sir?”
“Worms.”
“They will only take worms after a flood, when the water’s thick.”
Then without a word the man walked away, and Nic drew his line sharply from the water.
“Might have told me what bait they would take,” muttered the boy. “Perhaps he doesn’t know. Wish I had brought some paste. I don’t care; that’s good enough bait for anything. Now, here, some of you—bite.”
But they did not, and Nic sat upon a great stone, feeling rather ill-used. He was glad the convict had gone, and at the same time sorry.
“I suppose I answered him very gruffly, and that sent him off,” thought Nic.
“Now, sir. I’ve caught a few of these.”
Nic jumped again, for once more the man had approached in silence.
“Eh! what have you got?”
“Locusts, or grasshoppers, sir. Have you a nice-sized new hook?”
“Oh yes, plenty,” cried Nic eagerly, opening a flat box from which the man took one he thought suitable.
The next minute the hook bearing the great worm had been removed and one good-sized shot only left on the line.
“Now,—sir,” said Leather, “these grasshoppers are tender, so drop the bait gently on the surface, right over yonder where the stream comes round that end of the tree root.—Well done. Couldn’t be better. Now be on the look-out, sir.”
The running water carried the great insect several feet into the still water before the weight of the shot began to act. Then very slowly it was drawn down beneath the surface, and they saw it descend and disappear in the obscurity, the line being slowly drawn after it.
“They won’t take that ugly, crooked-legged thing,” said Nic. “Why, it would choke any fish that ever breathed.”
“Watch,” said Leather quietly. “It takes some time to sink, for you have only one shot on; but it looks more natural, and it has not yet reached the fish. I think I’d draw in my slack line now, sir, and be ready to strike gently.”
“No good,” said Nic, who, however, took the advice.
“If you do hook one, don’t let it run in among the old tree trunks, sir. If you do, the fish is lost. Directly you feel one, strike and lead it to the other end of the pool, and get it out in the shallows, where I can land it for you.”
“Handle it carefully, Leather,” said Nic, with a grim smile. “You see your grasshoppers are no better than my worms. These fish don’t understand biting.”
“No, sir, or they wouldn’t have taken that locust. Steady, sir, steady. That’s a heavy one. Well done; you’ll master it. Your tackle’s strong, and you must get it away from those roots and branches. That’s the way. I’ll go on and wait.”
For, quivering with excitement, his pliable rod bent into a bow, and the line running sharply here and there through the water, Nic was following a fish which had taken the bait with a rush deep down in the pool.
A minute later he had it near the surface, and had drawn it into the stream which ran out of the deep hole, into the shallowest part of which the convict had waded, and as soon as line and current had brought it near enough, he gave one deft scoop with his joined hands and threw it out on to the bank.
“I say! is it true?” cried Nic. “I can’t hardly believe it.”
“It looks true enough, sir,” replied the man. “Shall I take it off the hook?”
“Oh yes, please,” cried Nic excitedly. “You’ve got some more of those grasshoppers?”
“Three, sir,” said Leather, as he laid the fish at the boy’s feet, “and I can soon get some more. You’ll find these fish very good eating, but you must catch a dishful.”
“Why, Leather, you seem to know everything about the country.”
“I have had a long training, sir. You will know more than I do when you have been here two or three years. Now, then, throw in again.”
“Here, hi! Do you know one of them sheep’s falled down into a hole? I’m sure master don’t mean you to be wasting all your time out there, and idling about like a schoolboy.”
This was yelled hoarsely from some fifty yards away, and Nic saw that his companion started as if he had been stung.
An angry speech was on Nic’s lips at this interruption, but he checked it, for he knew that he had no right to keep the man from his work.
“Coming directly,” he said in loud tones. Then to. Leather: “Stop a minute while I catch another, and then you shall go. You must land it for me.”
Brookes was not kept long waiting, for another fish was hooked and landed in the same way; but before Leather had scooped it out Brookes was shouting again furiously.
“Must go, sir,” said the convict.
“Stop and I’ll come with you,” cried Nic, laying down his rod as soon as the fish was unhooked, and he hurried with the man to where Brookes stood talking, though half he said was inaudible.
“Here, Master Nic,” he said, as they approached; “I dunno what your father’ll say. Here’s one of his best sheep o’ that new breed down in a hole. You’ve no business to let that fellow leave his work.”
“Where is it?” said Leather anxiously.
“Where is it? Where d’yer s’pose it is?” said Brookes fiercely. “Down in the narrer.”
“The sheep were all safe a few minutes ago,” said Leather; and he ran off.
“Oh, yes,” said Brookes, in a sneering tone; “’course they were.”
“Is it badly hurt?”
“Badly hurt? I s’pose so. It’ll have to be killed.”
He trudged on, muttering surlily, and Nic followed up on to the level ground, where they could see the convict lowering himself down, only his head and shoulders being visible.
The next minute they were standing at the edge of a narrow rift some six feet wide and as many deep—a rift that ran on down into the valley they had just quitted, and at the bottom of which lay a sheep bleating piteously as Leather bestrode its woolly carcass.
“Why didn’t you pull it out instead of coming sneaking after us?” cried Nic.
“Eh? What?” cried Brookes, staring. “’Tain’t my place to look after they sheep. Leatherhead was set to do it, and he goes on neglecting his work. Ah! here comes the master. Now we shall see.”
For the doctor was coming cantering toward them over the level ground from about a quarter of a mile away, and Nic felt vexed and in dread of what was to follow.
“Is it hurt, Leather?” he said.
“Yes, sir, badly—its leg’s broken,” replied the man; and bending down, he placed his arms round the poor animal, raised it up on to his shoulder, and began to climb with difficulty out of the rift. As he reached the edge he nearly slipped back.
“Why don’t you help?” cried Nic angrily; but Brookes did not stir; and if the boy had not darted forward and got a good pull of the wool, man and sheep would have toppled backward to the bottom.
“Thank you, sir,” said the convict. “There’s no foothold, and I lost my balance. One moment. That’s it;” and the sheep was rolled off his shoulder on to the grass.
“What’s the matter?” cried the doctor, cantering up, leaping down, and throwing the reins over his horse’s head on to the grass, when the beautiful animal stood still.
“One o’ the best ewes down in that grip. I come and found it just now.”
“Yes, but you didn’t try to get it out,” said Nic.
“It warn’t in my charge,” growled Brookes.
“How was this, my man?” said the doctor. “You were set to look after them.”
“Yes, sir,” said the convict respectfully. “The sheep were all right a quarter of an hour ago.”
“Yes, and they’d ha’ been all right now if you’d looked arter them ’stead o’ wasting your time fishing,” growled Brookes. “I’m glad master’s here to know.”
“Were you fishing, sir?” said the doctor sternly; but before Leather could answer Nic cried quickly:
“No, father, he wasn’t. He came down to the river to get me a few baits. I wanted him there. Why didn’t Brookes help the sheep out?”
“Because it was the other man’s duty, sir,” said the doctor quickly; and Leather gave the boy a sharp look, as much as to say, “Don’t speak, sir; you’ll make things worse.”
“Ah, you needn’t signal the young master to take yer part,” cried Brookes. “It’s true enough; you ain’t worth your salt on the station.”
“That will do, Brookes,” said the doctor.
“Oh, I don’t want to say nothing, sir. I was only looking arter your property.”
“Tut, tut, tut!” cried the doctor, as he felt the sheep’s leg. “One of my choicest ewes. The leg’s broken. That active sheep couldn’t have broken its leg through falling down there. It would have jumped it like a goat. Why, Leather, the poor brute has been savagely kicked.”
“It looks like it, sir,” said the convict quietly.
“Why, so it do,” chimed in Brookes, as he bent over the helpless sheep.
“Do you know anything of it, sir?” cried the doctor, eyeing the convict keenly.
The man shook his head.
“It’s very strange,” said the doctor, looking at Brookes, who took off his hat, scratched his head, and looked round at the convict, while Nic glanced at Brookes’s boots and then at the poor sandal-like shoes the convict wore, which were evidently a piece of his own work.
“Like me to kill the poor thing out of its misery, sir,” said Brookes, “and take off its skin?”
“No,” said the doctor shortly.
“Won’t be nothin’ the matter with the meat, sir.”
“Nic,” said his father, “jump on the horse and ride home. Ask your mother to give you a roll of bandage, and bring it back here.”
“Yes, father.”
“Why, you ain’t going to bind that ’ere leg up, are ver?” said Brookes.
“Will you be good enough not to interrupt?” said the doctor. “Here, hi, Nic, my boy. Tell Samson to give you a sack and an axe. You can throw the sack across the horse.”
“Yes, father,” cried the boy; and he cantered off, obtained the bandage and sack, and was back in less than an hour, to find that Leather had, under the doctor’s directions, cut some pieces of wood from a tree, and with these for splints the doctor cleverly bandaged the broken leg.
“There, Nic,” he said, “I should not do that in a regular way, but this is a very valuable sheep, brought out to me by one of the last ships. Now one of you cut a good stout pole, say twelve feet long.”
Brookes looked at Leather, who caught up the axe and ran off.
While he was gone the doctor opened a part of the bottom of the sack, and cut four slits in the side; and this being done, Nic looked on in surprise while the sack was drawn over the struggling sheep’s head, its head pulled out of the bottom, and the legs put through the four slits.
“Now gather the sack together so that the poor brute cannot struggle out, Brookes,” said the doctor; and this was easily effected, as the animal was upon its side.
Then the doctor made holes and laced up the mouth of the sack securely, all but a few inches; and by this time Leather was back with a stout, neatly trimmed pole.
“Do you see what I mean?” said the doctor.
“Yes, sir,” replied the convict, and he slipped the pole through the sack above the sheep’s back, leaving about four feet out at each end.
“Now, Brookes, take the other end,” said the doctor; “lift together, and get the pole on your shoulders, both of you.”
“What, and carry that lame sheep home?” said Brookes.
“Yes; and its legs must not touch the ground.”
“But hadn’t you better let us chuck it across the back of the horse?”
“No. Now, together. Lift,” cried the doctor; and as this was done the sheep gave a dismal bleat, and hung from the pole, with its head and legs out,—a ridiculous-looking object, which made Nic smile, but Brookes’s face made the smile expand, so soured and puckered did it become, for the sheep was heavy, the farm buildings were some distance away, and the sun was coming down hot as the two men strode away, Leather looking heavy and stern, but apparently ready to undertake any amount of work.
“You can ride, Nic,” said the doctor, as the boy fetched up the horse.
“But my fishing-rod and line, father?”
“Where are they?”
“Down yonder, by one of the pools.”
“Oh, then you must go that way home.”
“Yes, father, and I have two fish.”
“Well done.”
“I say, father, I feel sure that Leather did not kick that sheep.”
“Who did then?” said the doctor.
“I don’t like to say, father.”
“That is suggesting your belief that it was Brookes, a man whom I have always found to work well in my interests, Nic. He has no spite against me.”
“Do you think the other man has?”
“I don’t know, boy. There, go on your way, and I’ll go home. One word, Nic. I want you to enjoy yourself, but I cannot have my men taken away from their work, mind that.”
The doctor cantered after the men bearing the sheep, and as Nic stood for a few minutes watching them, he heard the sheep give a piteous baa, as if protesting against its treatment, after which the men halted and changed shoulders.
Nic was too far off to see the expression of the men’s faces, but he felt pretty certain that Brookes’s was anything but pleasant, and he felt glad.
“I believe he did that out of spite against Leather,” thought Nic, “so as to make it seem as if it was through neglect. I don’t know, though, a man could hardly be such a brute.”
Nic descended into the little valley once more, and made his way along by the stream to the pool where he had left his rod.
“There’s one more locust,” he said to himself; “and I’ll try and catch another fish. Three will make a much better show. I dare say one would bite directly;” and determined to spend a few minutes in adding to his brace, he hurried on, thinking how beautiful the great, dense clump of trees on the other side of the stream appeared, many of them drooping gracefully over the water.
“The beauty of a place like this is,” he thought, “that you can leave things about and there is no one to take them.”
He smiled as he picked up his rod, drew the line through his fingers, and baited the hook with the great insect ready to cast right over into the stream so that the locust might be washed naturally into the sunlit pool.
“Now, if I can catch another as big as the— Hullo! where are those fish?”
Nic did not cast the locust, but stared hard at the spot where the fish had been laid down upon some fern leaves; but though the latter were still glistening with slime, the prizes were gone.
“They must have flopped their way back into the water,” said Nic to himself; “they went that way because it was all on a slope. Well, of all the tiresome nuisances I ever knew, this is about the worst. I wouldn’t have lost those fish for anything. They must have flopped to and fro down here and over that soft place.”
Nic’s thoughts stood still. The soft place he alluded to was close down to the shallow where Leather had waded in, and the water which had dripped from his legs lay upon the herbage and soft, dank, moist earth; but there was something else—footprints! Not Leather’s, made by broad shoe-soles, but newly impressed marks with wide-spreading toes, the big toe in each case being rather thumb-like in its separation from the others.
For some two or three minutes Nic did not stir, but bent down staring at those footprints. Then he glanced sharply over the shallows at the thick foliage, fully expecting to see a spear come flying at him.
“That’s the way my fish went,” he muttered as he turned and fled, feeling a sudden check the next minute, as if some one had seized the rod which hung over his shoulder, and a thrill of fear ran through him as he turned sharply round, when snap went the line, and he saw that the hook and locust were sticking in an overhanging bough, and about a yard of the line was hanging down.
That was enough to drive away some of his fear, but not all.
“One can’t fight blacks with fishing-rods,” muttered the boy as he again began to run, and he made his way homeward more quickly than he had come, and did not pause once to look back, though if he had it was doubtful whether he would have seen the cunning black face peering from out of the wattle scrub, watching him as he ran in and out through the trees, and then disappearing as soon as Nic was out of sight.
The fugitive did not pause till he reached home bathed in perspiration, just as his father rode slowly in side by side with the laden men, they having taken a shorter cut while he had followed the wanderings of the stream.
“Ah, Nic,” cried his father, “you shouldn’t run and overheat yourself like that, boy. Now, men, carry the poor beast into the stable and rest the pole on the rails; its hoofs will then be about five inches from the ground.—What?”
“Blackfellows, father,” said Nic, as soon as he could get his breath; “I saw their footmarks, and they have carried off my fish.”
Chapter Twenty Three.
A Squatter’s Life.
Nic’s announcement caused a little panic. The three blacks who came and went about the place were summoned and sent out searching, the house was placed in a state of defence, and Samson, Brookes, and Leather all furnished with guns and ammunition to stand ready for any emergency, taking it in turns though to keep watch, while horses and cattle were driven into the south enclosures by the house, and everything possible done to secure their safety.
Knowing his mother’s nervousness, Nic could not help staring in wonder at the calm way in which she and her daughters behaved at what might, for aught they could tell, be a dangerous time, for neither showed the slightest trace of fear.
In a couple of hours, though, the black known as Bungarolo came back to announce that, “Blackfellow all agone,” and he pointed away toward the dense bush, miles from where they were standing.
The explanation of the other two blacks when they returned cleared away the rest of the alarm, the doctor concluding that a few of the many wanderers had been near and gone away again, blacks probably belonging to a friendly tribe.
Consequently the next day matters went on as usual, save that Nic had to mount with his father, and, accompanied by two of their blacks, made a wide circuit about the station, touching the edge of the great gorge at one point and then riding round for miles.
Twice over the men, who trotted along easily enough step for step with the horses, pointed out tracks going and coming; and as the party was made out to be three only it was felt that there was no cause for alarm, and toward evening they rode back to the station with the glad news.
“But wouldn’t it have been very awkward for them if the blacks had come while we were away, father?” Nic ventured to ask on their way back.
“Yes, but they would have shut themselves in at once,” said the doctor; “two of the men would have been with them, and the other would have followed us, firing signals as he came. If the danger had been imminent, he would have seized the first horse and galloped over to Mr Dillon’s station.”
“I see,” said Nic.
“It’s mutual help out here, Nic. If one station is in danger, those nearest are always ready to gallop to its help.”
Then came days and weeks of busy life, with Nic finding little time for amusement, but enjoying the novelty of his new career. There were long rides to drive in cattle; visits to be paid to flocks miles away from the station; messages to be taken to Samson, Brookes, or Leather, who in turn were far away with the roaming sheep or oxen; and the boy was joked at home by mother and sisters for the way he ate, slept, and seemed to expand.
During this period he saw little of Leather, and the incident of the injured sheep and Brookes’s apparent enmity toward the convict was for the time forgotten, these two rarely being together.
Still, at different times Nic could not help noticing what a rooted dislike there was in the regular men against their convict fellow-servant, even old Samson shaking his head and expressing his belief that the station would be far better without “such as he.”
“I don’t want to be hard on anything ’cept blight, Master Nic,” said the old man one day; “but it comes nat’ral to a man to feel shy of a gaol bird who may rise agen you at any time and take to the bush.”
“Oh, but Leather is not that sort of man, Sam,” said Nic.
“Ah, that’s very nice, young gentleman; but you don’t know, and I don’t know. All I say is if there’s a bull about on that side o’ the fence it’s best to walk on this.”
“But the bull may not mean to do you harm, Sam.”
“P’r’aps not, sir; but bulls have mad fits now and then, so does convicts. I’ve know’d two stations ’tacked and every one killed, and they said it was the blacks; but they very soon found that it warn’t, for in each case a lot had escaped from the chain gang, took to the bush, and every ’signed servant as they come across jyned ’em.”
“That’s very horrible,” said Nic. “And what became of them?”
“Ah, you may well say that, sir: some was shot down by the soldiers, some was killed by the natives, some was lost in the bush and died o’ hunger and thirst, while the blacks speared the rest all but one, and he gave himself up. They do a lot o’ mischief, these chaps, when they take to the bush, sir; but, fortunately for honest folk, they all come to a bad end.”
Then came a more leisure time, when old Samson took a holiday, as he called it—that is to say, he worked from daylight to darkness over his rather neglected garden; while Nic had leisure to think again of his natural history specimens, and went out with his gun; but he did not feel at all keen about sitting down in a woody place near the river to fish and offer himself as a mark for any black who meant to practise hurling his spear. It was so much more satisfactory to mount Sour Sorrel and ride off, gun in hand, through the open woodland with the soft breeze sweeping by his cheek, and pick up a beautifully feathered bird from time to time.
The injured sheep had grown quite well, and, save that it limped as it grazed, its leg was as strong as ever; “and that lameness does not interfere with its promising to be a good mother,” said the doctor, smiling, as he pointed to the pair of white lambs gambolling by the lame sheep’s side.
“Did you ever satisfy yourself as to how its leg was broken?” said Nic.
“No, my boy; and I did not want to. I have my suspicions, but I let them rest. It is the same at most of the stations—the free men dislike the bond. It is natural. And now that things are going on peaceably, we will let them rest.”
One day, quite by accident, the boy found himself thrown in contact again with Leather, whose brown, deeply lined countenance always brightened when Nic came across him somewhere with his sheep.
“I say, Leather,” he said, as he sat on his nag watching the man busily carving a stick he had cut: “you remember telling me about how the blacks followed the bees?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you show me?”
“Yes,” said Leather, smiling sadly; and he looked about till he found a tree with some of its seed-vessels full of fine silky cotton, smeared one end of a twig with a bead of gum from another tree, and then walked on, followed by Nic, till they came to a patch of bushes, whose fragrant blossoms had attracted the bees by the dozen.
One pollen-laden fellow was soon caught, the gum stick touched its back, the white cotton was brought in contact, and the uninjured insect set free.
Up in the air it went at once, regardless of the yellow flowers among which it had been buzzing, and then flew away in a straight line, with its white patch on its back, to be traced some forty or fifty yards, before it disappeared among the trees.
“Gone!” said Nic, who was in advance, for he had followed the insect on horseback. “Think there’s a tree here?”
“No; these are not the kind of trees they nest in. They do not go hollow.”
“What will you do, then?”
“Repeat the process, sir.”
And this was done four times, till the last bee was traced to a quarter of a mile from where they started, and a tiny hole was made out sixty feet from the ground, about which scores of little dark insects could be seen darting.
“Now how to get the honey?” said Nic.
“Send or bring Bungarolo here to-morrow with an axe and a bucket, and you shall have plenty.”
Eager to see the taking of the spoil, Nic was over in good time next morning, the black trotting by his side; and upon reaching the tree the Australian savage took the axe from his waistcloth, while Leather lit a great piece of touchwood by means of a burning glass. This wood began to burn, emitting a dense white smoke, and as the convict waved it about, the black took off his waistcloth, passed it through the handle of the bucket, and tied it again about his middle, so that the bucket hung behind. Then, axe in hand, he began to chop notches in the soft bark, to make steps for his active feet, and climbed steadily up and up, Nic watching him the while.
“It looks very dangerous,” said the boy. “Think he is likely to fall?”
“Not in the least, sir. They begin doing these things when children, and they don’t seem to have any nerves.”
It seemed indeed as if the black did not know fear, for he went on up and up till he was fully sixty feet from the ground, and here he held on with his legs while he undid his waistcloth once more and tied it now to a branch, so that the bucket hung close to the hole where the bees buzzed in and out, as if feeling in no wise incommoded by the black face so near.
And now Bungarolo stuck the axe into the soft bark and rapidly descended, grinning hugely at his success. Leather handed him the smoking torch, and he went up again, holding the end of the soft wood in his teeth.
On reaching the hole, the smoke which had accompanied him in his ascent became thicker, and being held just below the entrance, scared away the bees coming back, and those coming out into pouring forth faster and faster, till there was quite a cloud darting about above that of the blinding wood smoke.
Then a few cleverly directed strokes of the axe made a big opening through the bark, the axe was thrown down, and the black’s arm thrust in right up to the shoulder, and his hand drawn out bearing a great cake of honeycomb.
This he deposited in the bucket, pausing now and then to give the smoking wood a wave, or to hold it inside the opening, to drive out the bees before bringing out more and more comb, till the bucket was pretty well full.
And now the most difficult task seemed to await the black; but he held on again with his legs, untied the waist cloth, rested the bucket on his chest, while he knotted the cloth ends together again, and slipped it over his head. Then, taking the smoking wood from where he had placed it inside the hole, he threw it down and descended safe and triumphant, to begin cleaning his sticky hands after the fashion of a cat, before bearing the bucket back to the station, where Mrs Braydon gave him a lump of damper for a reward.
Chapter Twenty Four.
Leather Speaks Out.
Another day, it seemed as if Sorrel felt with his master, and took him straight to a fresh part of the great sheep run, near where the vast gorge was fenced at its edge with mighty trees, beneath one of which Leather was seated, looking hard and stern.
Nic was very thoughtful that day. There was something he wanted to ask the convict, but he always shrank from satisfying his curiosity; and this time he showed that he had something upon his mind so plainly, that Leather after their abrupt salutations had passed, said:
“Not well, sir?”
“Yes, quite well. Why?”
“Looked queer, sir.”
“Oh, nothing,” said Nic hastily, for he had made up his mind to question the man, and now the opportunity had come he felt that he could not speak.
“I was thinking about you a little while ago, sir.”
“About me? Why?”
“You were saying the other day that you had seen so few snakes. I’ve seen four this morning. Two of them are poisonous; you may as well have a shot at them.”
“How do you know that they are poisonous?”
“Partly from the bad character they have, sir, partly from the shape of the head.”
“Let’s see, I’ve heard something about that before: poisonous snakes have a spade-shaped head, haven’t they?”
“That’s what they call it, sir. It is really a great swelling at the back of the jaws on either side of the neck. This swelling is made by the poison bags which communicate with their hollow fangs. You’ll see if you shoot the big gentleman I saw crawling back into his hole this morning. I dare say he’s out again now, to be in the hot sun. Why, what’s the matter, Master Nic?”
“Matter?”
“Yes, sir; you keep going off in a dreamy way, and not listening.”
Nic frowned and was silent.
“I beg your pardon, sir; it is like my impertinence to ask you. I forget sometimes, when you are ready to treat me like a human being, that I am only a convict.”
“Don’t take it like that,” said Nic hurriedly. “It was only because I was thinking, Leather.”
“Yes, sir, I see: some little trouble at home.”
“Oh, no!” cried Nic, ready to blurt out everything now. “You see I like you, Leather.”
The man’s eyes flashed and then softened for a moment, while his lips quivered; but his hard, cynical, bitter aspect and tones came back—the manner born of years of misery and degradation, and he cried mockingly:
“Why? Because I behaved like a brute to you, and made believe to throw you down into that gully?”
“Don’t bring that up,” cried Nic angrily; “and don’t talk in that way, Leather. It isn’t you. It’s only put on.”
“Indeed,” said the man bitterly. “Well, I didn’t put it on, sir. It was fate.”
“There, I didn’t like to speak to you,” continued Nic; “but I must now. I’ve long wanted to, for of course I can’t help seeing how different you are from Brookes and old Sam. You are always showing me that you are a man of good education, and what a deal you know. It makes me ashamed sometimes.”
“Why?” said Leather sternly.
“To ask you to do all kinds of rough work when I feel that you are better educated than I am—that you must have been quite a gentleman.”
“Ah, don’t, boy!” cried Leather passionately, and with his face convulsed. “For Heaven’s sake hold your tongue.”
“I can’t now,” cried Nic, as excitedly. “I feel as if I must know. I do like you, Leather—I do really; and it worries me. I think of it at night when I go to bed, and it makes me wild to hear Brookes talk to you as he does.”
“Brookes is an honest man, sir; I’m a convict,” said Leather bitterly.
“There you are, going back to your old way!” cried Nic; “and it isn’t fair, after I’ve told you I liked you.”
The convict caught the boy’s hand, and his eyes softened again; but he dropped the hand and drew back, sending a pang through Nic, who felt that he must have been guilty of some terrible crime, and they stood looking in each other’s eyes for some little time. Then the boy spoke in a husky whisper—for he said to himself, “Poor chap, he must be very sorry for it now,”—“What was it you did, Leather?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why were you sent out here?”
Nic started, and repented having spoken, for the convict drew himself up, with his eyes flashing and his face convulsed by rage, scorn, and indignation.
“Why was I sent out here, boy?” he raged: “because a jury of my fellow-countrymen said I was guilty, and the judge told me that I deserved the greater punishment because I—a man of education, holding so high and responsible a position, and who ought to have known better—was worse than a common ignorant thief; and that he must make an example of me, that the world might see how government servants found no favour when they sinned. He said I had had a fair trial, that my countrymen condemned me, and that he quite agreed with their verdict; and he sentenced me to twenty-one years’ transportation,—he might as well have said for life.”
Nic stood looking at him in pain and misery, and the convict began pacing up and down in the agony evoked by this dragging up of the past.
“I’m sorry I spoke,” faltered Nic.
“No, no: I’m glad. It is like stabbing me, but if I bleed, boy, it is a relief. Transportation for twenty-one years, and to what a life of horror, misery, and despair! Companion to the greatest scoundrels and wretches that ever breathed; loathed and hated by them, because I was not what they, called their sort. Then, when sent out for good behaviour as an assigned servant, hated and scorned and trampled upon by every honest man. You have seen—you know. The convict from the chain gang, a branded felon. Nic, boy!—I beg your pardon, sir,” he cried bitterly—“Master, your slave wonders sometimes that he is alive. I tell you I’ve prayed night after night for death, but it would not come: no spear, no blinding stroke from the sun, no goring by the half-wild bullocks which have chased me; no fall when I have desperately climbed down the side of that gorge. No! spite of all risk I have grown stronger, healthier, as you see—healthier in body, but more and more diseased in mind.”
He stopped and threw himself down upon his breast, to bury his face in his hands; and just then there came a low, chuckling sound, as of laughter, from one of the great grey kingfishers in the tree above them, followed by a wild, dissonant, shrieking chorus from a flock of parrots, as if in defiance at the cruel laugh.
“I don’t mind your speaking to me as you did, Leather,” said Nic at last, as he turned his head aside to hide his emotion, and he sat down to watch his beautiful horse quietly cropping the grass, thinking how much happier the dumb beast was. “I only mind when you talk in your bitter way.—I’m sorry for you.”
“God bless you, my lad!” said the convict, in smothered tones: “I know it. You’ve shown it to me a score of times. My life has not been the same since you came here.”
“And I can’t help seeing that you are sorry too. How could you have done so bad a thing?”
“I? Did that!” cried Leather, springing up on one arm. “I tell you I am innocent as a child. Dominic Braydon, mine was a high position, and large sums of money passed through my hands. There came a day when a heavy amount was missing. It was gone, I could not explain how. Everything seemed against me. My explanations were ridiculed, and until I had been out here a couple of years I could not see the light. It came one day, though, like a flash—when it was too late.”
Nic looked at him inquiringly.
“My subordinate was the guilty man: the meek, amiable wretch who broke down in the witness-box and wept at being forced to tell all he knew. Even I believed and liked him at the time—poor weak fool that I was! If it imposed on me, who listened to every word he spoke, seeking for some way of escape, how could I wonder that judge, jury, and counsel were deceived? But it was too late when I read the truth, and that to save himself he sacrificed me—me who had helped him in every way.”
“Then you really did not take this money?” cried Nic.
“Not one penny. I? But, there, why did you drag this all from me, boy? You made me speak. I do not say it to excite your sympathy. It is my fate, and I have tried to bear it like a man. I have borne it like a man, boy, though it has made me hard, callous, and brutal. Dead to all who knew and loved me, I have still lived, thinking that perhaps some day the truth may rise like the sun and throw its light around. Then I know it will be time to join the only one who believed me what I am.”
“And who was that?” said Nic hoarsely.
“She who was to have been my wife. It was her death.”
There was the hot stillness of the Australian midday around them, and for some time neither spoke.
Then all at once Leather sprang to his feet.
“There, sir,” he said, “you are the first who has heard my tale. The law has branded me a convict, and I can only say ‘Please let all this be as if it had never been said.’ And yet I don’t know,” he continued, with his eyes softening; “it has done me good. Still I don’t ask you to believe me, sir. There is plenty of deceit out here, and I have met some clever actors of innocent parts in the different gangs.”
“But I do believe you,” cried Nic earnestly—“every word. Oh, I felt that you could not have been so bad.”
“Thank you, my lad,” said the convict, smiling; and Nic thought what a fine, handsome, manly fellow he was when his face lit up. “No: I cannot shake hands. Some day, perhaps. I should like to help you, not drag you down. It is master and servant, you know. Yes,” he added, after a pause, as he gazed earnestly in Nic’s eyes, “you do believe me. There, I shall work more easily now, for life is brighter than it was.”
He sprang to his feet now, and moved to go, but came back.
“We were forgetting the execution of the poisonous snake, sir,” he said, with a little laugh. “This way.”
“No,” said Nic quietly; “let it live another day.”
He walked to his horse, lifted the rein and threw it over the animal’s neck, then sprang upon its back.
“Master Nic!”
“Yes.”
“This is our secret, sir, and you must keep your place.”
“Secret? Why shouldn’t I tell my mother and father that you were condemned for that which you did not do?”
“I’ll tell you, sir,” cried Leather. “Because they cannot listen with your ears, nor see me with your eyes.”
“My father is everything that is just,” said Nic proudly, “and my mother all that is gentle and true.”
“God bless her! yes, my boy,” said the convict softly; “but if you speak, Mrs Braydon, knowing me for what I am, will say, ‘This man has wormed himself into my son’s confidence—he has obtained an influence over him that is not healthy—he had better go,’ and I should be exchanged, Master Nic, as they would exchange a horse or bullock. Don’t speak, sir, and have me sent away!”
Nic looked in the pleading eyes, and saw that the man’s lips were quivering from the strong emotion which animated him.
“Our secret, then,” he said; and at a touch of the heel the horse bounded away, with its rider feeling that every word the convict had spoken must be the truth.