OLE ABEL ALBURY had a genius for getting the bull by the tail with a tight grip and holding on with both hands and an obstinancy born of ignorance—and not necessarily for the sake of self-preservation or selfishness—while all the time the bull might be, so to speak, rooting up life-long friendships and neighbourly relations, and upsetting domestic customs and traditions with his horns.
Yes, Uncle Abel was always grasping the wrong end of things, and sticking to it with that human mulishness which is often stranger, and more often wearies and breaks down the opposition than an intelligent man’s arguments. He was—or professed to be, the family said—unable for a long time to distinguish between his two grand-nephews, one of whom was short and fat, while the other was tall and thin, the only points of resemblance between them being that each possessed the old family nose and eyes. When they were boys he used to lay the strap about one in mistake for the other. They had a saying that Uncle Abel saw with ten squinting eyes.
Also, he could never—or would not, as the family said—remember names. He referred to Mrs Porter, a thin, haggard selector’s wife, as “Mrs Stout” and he balanced matters by calling Mrs Southwick “Mrs Porterwicket”—when he didn’t address her as “Mrs What’s-the-woman’s-name”—and he succeeded in deeply offending both ladies.
Uncle Abel was Mrs Carey’s uncle. Down at the lower end of Carey’s selection at Rocky Rises, in the extreme corner of the lower or outer paddock, were slip-rails opening into the main road, which ran down along the siding, round the foot of a spur from the ridge, and out west. These slip-rails were called “The Lower Slip-rails” by the family, and it occurred to Uncle Abel to refer to them as “Buckolts’ Gate”, for no other reason apparently than that
Buckolts’ farm lay in that direction. The farm was about a mile further on, on the other side of the creek, and the gate leading to it from the main road was round the spur, out of sight of Carey’s selection. It is quite possible that Uncle Abel reasoned the thing out for days, for of such material are some human brains. Slip-rails, or a slip-panel, is a panel of fencing of which the rails are made to be slipped out of the mortise holes in the posts so as to give passage to horses, vehicles and cattle. I suppose Abel called it a gate, because he was always going to hang a proper gate there some day. The family were unaware of his new name for the Lower Slip-rails, and after he had, on one or two occasions, informed the boys that they would find a missing cow or horse at the Buckolts’ Gate, and they had found it calmly camped at the Lower Slip-rails, and after he had made several appointments to meet parties at Buckolts’ Gate, and had been found leaning obstinately on the fence by the Lower Slip-rails with no explanation to offer other than that he was waiting at Buckolts’ Gate, they began to fear that he was becoming weak in his mind.
IT was New Year’s Eve at Rocky Rises. There was no need for fireworks or bonfires, for the bush fires were out all along the ranges to the east, and as night came on, lines and curves of lights—clear lights, white lights, and, in the nearer distance, red lights and smoky lights—marked the sidings and ridges of a western spur of the Blue Mountain Range, and seemed suspended against a dark sky, for the stars and the loom of the hills were hidden by smoke and drought haze.
There was a dance at Careys’. Old Carey was a cheerful, broad-minded Bushman, haunted at times by the memories of old days, when he was the beau of the Bush balls, and so when he built his new slab-and-bark barn he had it properly floored with hard-wood, and the floor well-faced “to give the young people a show when they wanted a dance”, he said. The floor had a spring in it, and Bush boys and girls often rode twenty miles and more to dance on that floor. The girls said it was a lovely floor.
On this occasion Carey had stacked his wheat outside until after the New Year. Spring-carts, and men and girls on horseback came in from miles round. “Sperm” candles had been cut up and thrown on the floor during the afternoon, and rubbed over by feet cased tightly in ’lastic-sides; and hoops were hung horizontally from the tie-beams, with candles stuck round them. There were fresh-faced girls, and sweet, freckled-faced girls, and jolly girls, and shy girls—all sorts of girls except sulky, “toney” girls—and lanky chaps, most of them sawny, and weird, whiskered agriculturists, who watched the dancers with old, old time-worn smiles, or stood, or sat on their heels yarning, with their pipes, outside, where two boilers were slung over a log-fire to boil water for tea; and there were leathery women, with complexions like dried apples, who gossiped—for the first time in months perhaps—and watched the young people, and thought at times, no doubt, of other days—of other days when they were girls. (And not so far distant either, in some cases, for women dry quickly in the Bush.)
And there were one or two, soldiers and their wives, whose eyes glistened when Jim Bullock played “The Girl I Left Behind Me”.
Jim Bullock was there with his concertina. He sat on a stool in front of a bench, on which was a beer-keg, piles of teacups and saucers, several big tin teapots, and plates of sandwiches, sponge-cake, tarts, etc. Jim sat in his shirt-sleeves, with his flat-brimmed, wire-bound, “hard-hitter” hat on, slanting over his weaker eye. He held one leg loosely and the other rigid, with the concertina on his knee, and swanked away at the instrument by the hour, staring straight in front of him with the expression of a cod-fish, and never moving a muscle except the muscles of his great hairy arms and big chapped and sun-blotched hands; while chaps in tight “larstins” (elastic-side boots), slop suits of black, bound with braid, and with coats too short in the neck and arms, and trousers bell-mouthed at the bottoms, and some with paper collars, narrow red ribbon ties, or scarfs through walnut shells, held their partners rigidly, and went round the room with their eyes—most of them—cocked at the rafters in semi-idiotic ecstasy.
But there was tall, graceful, pink-and-white Bertha Buckolt, blue-eyed and blue-black-haired, and little Mary Carey with the kind, grey eyes and red-gold hair; there was Mary’s wild brother Jim, with curly black hair and blue eyes and dimples of innocence; and there was Harry Dale, the drover, Jim’s shearing and droving mate, a tall, good-looking, brown-eyed and brown-haired young fellow, a “betterclass” Bushman and the best dancer in the district. Uncle Abel usurped the position of M.C., and roared “Now then! take yer partners!” and bawled instructions and interrupted and tangled up the dancers, until they got used to taking no notice of his bull voice. Mary Carey was too shy—because she loved him, and secretly and fondly hoped and doubted that he cared for her—to be seen dancing more than once with Harry Dale, so he shared Bertha Buckolt, the best girl dancer there, with Jim Carey, who danced with his sister when Harry was dancing with Bertha Buckolt, and who seemed, for some reason best known to himself, to be perfectly satisfied with the arrangement. Poor little Mary began to fret presently, and feel a little jealous of Bertha, her old schoolmate. She was little and couldn’t dance like Bertha, and she couldn’t help noticing how well Bertha looked to-night, and what a well-matched pair she and Harry made: and so, when twelve o’clock came and they all went outside to watch the Old Year out and the New Year in—with a big bonfire on the distant ridge where the grass fires had reached a stretch of dry scrub—and to join hands all round and sing “Auld Lang Syne”, little Mary was not to be found, for she was sitting on a log round behind the cow-yard, crying softly to herself.
And when about three o’clock they all started home, Mary gave Bertha her cheek to kiss instead of her mouth, and that hurt Bertha, who had
her
cry riding home, to the astonishment and irritation of her brother Jack, who rode home with her.
But when they were all gone Mary was missing again, and when her mother called her, and, after a pause, the voice of Harry Dale said, respectfully, in the darkness, “She’s here, Mrs Carey, she’s all right,” the two were discovered sitting on a convenient log of the wood-heap, with an awkward and over-acted interval of log between them.
Old Carey liked Harry Dale, and seemed very well satisfied with the way things appeared to be going. He pressed Harry to stay at the Selection overnight. “The missus will make you a shake-down on the floor,” he said. Harry had no appointments, and stayed cheerfully, and old Carey, having had a whisky or two, insisted on Mary making the shake-down, and the old folks winked at each other behind the young folks’ backs to see how poor little Mary spread a spare mattress, with red-hot, averted face, and found an extra pillow and a spare pair of ironed sheets for the shake-down.
At sunrise she stole out to milk the cows, which was her regular duty; there was no other way out from her room than through the dining-room, where Harry lay on his back, with his arms folded, resting peacefully. He seemed sound asleep and safe for a good two hours, so she ventured. As she passed out she paused a moment looking down on him with all the love-light in her eyes, and, obeying a sudden impulse, she stooped softly and touched his forehead with her lips, then she slipped out. Harry stretched, opened his eyes, winked solemnly at the ceiling, and then, after a decent interval, he got up, dressed, and went out to help her to milk.
Harry Dale and Jim Carey were going out to take charge of a mob of bullocks going north-west, away up in Queensland, and as they had lost a day and night to be at the dance, they decided to start in the cool of the evening and travel all night. Mary walked from the homestead to the Lower Slip-rails between her brother, who rode—because he was her brother—and led a pack-horse on the other side, and Harry, who walked and led his horse—because he was her sweetheart, avowed only since last night.
There were thunder-storms about, and Mary had repented sufficiently with regard to Bertha Buckolt to wear on her shoulders a cape which Bertha had left behind last night.
When they reached the Lower Slip-rails Jim said he’d go on and that Harry needn’t hurry: he stooped over his horse’s neck, kissed his sister, promised to keep away from the drink, not to touch a card, and to leave off fighting, and rode on. And when he
rounded the Spur he saw a tall, graceful figure slipping through the trees from the creek towards Buckolts’ Gate.
Then came the critical time at the Lower Slip-rails. The shadows from the setting sun lengthened quickly on the siding, and then the sun slipped out of sight over a “saddle” in the ridges, and all was soon dusk save the sunlit peaks of the Blue Mountains away to the east over the sweeps of blue-grey bush.
“Ah, well! Mary,” said Harry, “I must make a start now.”
“You’ll—you’ll look after Jim, won’t you, Harry?” said Mary.
“I will, Mary, for your sake.”
Her mouth began to twitch, her chin to tremble, and her eyes brimmed suddenly.
“You must cheer up, Mary,” he said with her in his arms. “I’ll be back before you know where you are, and then we’ll be married right off at once and settle down for life.”
She smiled bravely.
“Good-bye, Mary!”
“Good-bye, Harry!”
He led his horse through the rails and lifted them, with trembling hands, and shot them home. Another kiss across the top rail and he got on his horse. She mounted the lower rail, and he brought his horse close alongside the fence and stooped to kiss her again.
“Cheer up, Mary!” he said. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do—when I come back I’ll whistle when I reach the Spur and you be here to let the slip-rails down for me. I’ll time myself to get here about sundown. I’ll whistle ‘Willie Riley’, so you’ll know it’s me. Good-bye, little girl! I must go now. Don’t fret—the time will soon go by.”
He turned, swung his horse, and rode slowly down the track, turning now and again to wave his hand to her, with a farewell flourish of his hat as he rounded the Spur. His track, five hundred miles, or perhaps a thousand, into the great north-west; his time, six months, or perhaps a year. Hers a hundred yards or so back to the dusty, dreary drudgery of selection life.
The daylight faded into starlight, the sidings grew very dim, and a faint white figure blurred against the bars of the slip-panel.
IT was the last day of the threshing—shortly after New Year—at Rocky Rises. The green boughs, which had been lashed to the verandah posts on Christmas Eve, had withered and been used for firewood. The travelling steamer had gone with its gang of men, and the family sat down to tea, the men tired with hard work and heat, and with prickly heat and irritating wheaten chaff and dust under their clothes—and with smut (for the crop had been a smutty one) “up their brains” as Uncle Abel said—the women worn out with cooking for a big gang of shearers.
Good-humoured Aunt Emma—who was Uncle Abel’s niece—recovered first, and started the conversation. There were one or two neighbours’ wives who had lent crockery and had come over to help with the cooking in their turns. Jim Carey’s name came up incidentally, but was quickly dropped, for ill reports of Jim had come home. Then Aunt Emma mentioned Harry Dale, and glanced meaningly at Mary, whose face flamed as she bent over her plate.
“Never mind, Mary,” said Aunt Emma, “it’s nothing to be ashamed of. We were all girls once. There’s many a girl would jump at Harry.”
“Who says I’m ashamed?” said Mary, straightening up indignantly.
“Don’t tease her, Emma,” said Mrs Carey, mildly.
“I’ll tell yer what,” said young Tom Carey, frankly, “Mary got a letter from him to-day. I seen her reading it behind the house.”
Mary’s face flamed again and went down over her plate.
“Mary,” said her mother, with sudden interest, “did Harry say anything of Jim?”
“No, mother,” said Mary. “And that’s why I didn’t tell you about the letter.”
There was a pause. Then Tommy said, with that delightful tact which usually characterises young Tommies:
“Well, Mary needn’t be so cocky about Harry Dale, anyhow. I seen him New Year’s Eve when we had the dance. I seen him after the dance liftin’ Bertha Buckolt onter her horse in the dark—as if she couldn’t get on herself—she’s big enough. I seen
him lift her on, an’ he took her right up an’ lifted her right inter the saddle, ’stead of holdin’ his hand for her to tread on like that new-chum jackeroo we had. An’, what’s more, I seen him hug her an’ give her a kiss before he lifted her on. He told her he was as good as her brother.”