In Sight of Hammerville
It was the next day but one, and Rockefeller
was toiling along the heavy road outside Pomeroy,
when a man in a cabbage-tree hat, red flannel shirt,
and long boots rode up to Hutton’s store, which
stood on the outskirts of the town, and, seeing the
van coming, dismounted, threw his horse’s bridle
over the fence, and walked towards it.
“Are you the Plumstead lot?”
he asked, with a jerk of his hat towards Nealie, which
was meant for politeness and accepted in the same spirit.
“We are,” she answered,
with a bow, wondering nervously if he were a bushranger,
of which she had read so much during the voyage and
yet had not set eyes on since landing.
“Which is Dalrymple Plumstead?”
demanded the red-shirted individual, fixing a ferocious
gaze on Rupert, who flushed and turned a trifle pale,
wondering what could be the matter.
“I am Dalrymple,” said
Rumple, dodging round from the shady side of the wagon,
where he had been walking and trying to compose blank
verse about Australian roadside scenery, but not succeeding
over-well.
“Why, you are only a kid!”
exclaimed the man in ludicrous disappointment, falling
back a step and surveying Rumple with an expression
of bewildered surprise.
“It is a fault that will mend
with time,” replied Rumple, with such crushing
dignity that Sylvia, who was sitting behind Nealie
in the wagon, gurgled and choked.
The red-shirted person threw back
his head with a great burst of laughter, then, thrusting
out a brown, hairy hand, cried eagerly: “Well,
you are plucky anyhow, every ounce of you! Shake,
will you? I’m downright proud to make your
acquaintance, sir, and if you have come to these parts
to settle, all I’ve got to say is that we are
proud to have you among us.”
This was quite too much for Sylvia,
who choked so badly that Ducky thought she had a bone
in her throat, and patted her with great concern.
But Rumple flushed up in an offended
fashion, for he thought that he was being laughed
at, and it made him angry, although, as a rule, he
was remarkably even-tempered.
“Perhaps I should understand
better if you explained your business with me,”
he said, puffing out his chest in what Nealie called
his best pigeon manner, and which caused her to turn
her head abruptly to gaze at the fence on the other
side of the road, so that the stranger should not
see that she was laughing so much.
“Well, I take it that you are
the young gentleman that stalked the cattle thieves
out by Russell Downs, and kept them from getting clear
away with five hundred head of my cattle; and if that
is not cause for thankfulness I don’t know what
is,” said the man, gripping Rumple hard, and
sawing away at his hand much as if it were a pump handle
and the water was hard to fetch.
“Oh, they were your cattle that
stampeded, and bowled our wagon over in the dead of
night!” exclaimed Nealie, while Rumple turned
pink with pleasure at the thought of being so much
appreciated.
“No, Miss, I should say it was
the other lot, which belong to Tom Jones of Hobson’s
Bottom, and if you want to make any claim for damages
you had better send it in to him, seeing that he is
much better off than I am, and his cattle are the
wildest lot in the New South Wales boundary,”
said the red-shirted person, with such an air of wriggling
out of it that the whole seven burst into a shout
of laughter, and then promptly apologized for their
apparent rudeness.
But he waved his hand in an airy fashion,
and begged them to have their laugh out.
“And it does me good to see
young things so lively,” he exclaimed, taking
his hat right off and bowing to right and left, as
if he had received an ovation. “My name
is Tim Callaghan, and I am Irish on my father’s
side, though I never saw old Ireland, and am never
likely to.”
“We are very pleased to make
your acquaintance, Mr. Callaghan, and we are quite
sure that it must have been Mr. Jones’s cattle
that knocked our wagon over, so we will give his address
to Messrs. Peek & Wallis, if there is any complaint
of damage made to us about the wagon when it is returned
to the owners,” said Nealie; and then she asked
in an interested tone; “But how did you hear
anything about it? Were you helping to drive
the cattle?”
“No; if I had been I would have
taken good care that there was a better watch set,”
replied Tim Callaghan. “I couldn’t
leave because my wife was ill, but I heard through
the police, who sent me word that I should be fined
for letting my cattle stray to the danger of other
people’s property, and that I should have doubtless
lost the greater part of my mob for good and all if
it had not been for a Mr. Dalrymple Plumstead, who
rode after the thieves and gave warning to the police.
There is one comfort about it, and that is that Tom
Jones will be fined too, and it will do him a world
of good to be taken down a peg or two. And now
what can I do for you, ladies and gentlemen?”
“You might tell us which is
the best place in Pomeroy to buy food, for our provision
box is nearly empty, and things are so dear in these
country places,” said Nealie rather wistfully,
for her money was running very low, and there was
always present with her the dread that she would not
have enough to keep them going until they reached Hammerville.
“You had better come along with
me to Gil Addington’s; he is about as reasonable
as anyone in Pomeroy, and we are having a deal over
some pigs that may help me to pull his prices down
a bit for you, and they will stand a little paring
off at most times,” said Mr. Callaghan, who was
uncommonly glad to pay his debt of gratitude in this
fashion, since the cost would fall upon someone else.
“We ought to have some corn
for Rockefeller too, if we can manage it,” said
Nealie rather anxiously. She knew that it was
the poorest sort of economy to let the good horse
go underfed, and ungrateful as well, seeing what a
useful beast it had been. But corn for horses
was a tremendous price in most of the little towns
through which they had passed, and food for Rockefeller
had become a very big item in the expenses.
“Want some corn for the hoss,
did you say?” demanded Mr. Callaghan in a breezy
tone. “Well, I don’t know as I can’t
let you have half a bushel free, gratis, and for nothing,
as they say in the old country. My wagon is in
the town now, I believe, and the corn is in it safe
enough, unless someone has stolen it, which isn’t
likely.”
A queer, choky feeling came into the
throat of Nealie as she drove Rocky along the main
street of Pomeroy, with Mr. Callaghan riding on ahead.
How kind people were to them! Of course she did
not know that in common decency Tim Callaghan should
have paid Rumple fifteen shillings or a sovereign
for the service rendered in caring for the cattle,
and that he also should have paid something towards
the damage sustained in the overturning of the wagon.
Ignorance was certainly bliss in her case, and she
esteemed the Irishman a benefactor indeed, when as
a matter-of-fact he was doing his level best to shuffle
out of his obligations.
However, he beat Gil Addington’s
prices down to a figure so low that Nealie worried
considerably as to whether she would not be a party
to a fraud if she took the goods at Mr. Callaghan’s
valuation, and was not even consoled when he whispered
to her in a loud aside that Gil was quite sharp enough
to make the next customer run up his profits for him.
Still, it was an amazing comfort to
find the provision box full once more, to know that
there was enough corn to last Rocky to the end of the
journey, and to feel that she had still a little money
left in her purse. On shipboard there had seemed
to be no anxieties at all, but ever since landing
she had carried a very heavy load indeed.
There were a good many miles yet to
travel, and the worst of it was that, although they
had a very good map of the route, which Mr. Wallis
had marked for them, they had several times made mistakes,
and had gone miles out of their way in consequence.
And in a journey like theirs such things tell seriously
in the mileage.
The weather had grown very hot again,
and everyone, including the horse, was feeling the
effects, while Rupert and Ducky, the most delicate
of the party, were almost in a state of collapse.
Rupert, according to his wont, made no complaint at
all, but Ducky, who had less self-control, enquired
fifty times a day how soon it would be before they
could live in a nice cool house again, and have beds
with sheets to them.
Sylvia did her utmost to keep these
plaints from reaching the ears of Nealie, for surely
the elder sister had more than enough of worry and
care. Sylvia had never troubled herself about
things of this sort in the days at Beechleigh, when
she had been as irresponsible in her way as either
Don or Billykins, but the long journey and the sense
of responsibility in being so peculiarly on their
own had steadied her and developed her character in
quite a wonderful manner.
She rigged Ducky up a little shelter
at the back of the wagon, because it was cooler there,
and the dust was less. Then she would walk behind
for miles, finding all sorts of things to interest
the petulant little maiden, and beguile her from fretting,
while Rupert sat on the front seat and drove.
By this time the boots of the most
active members of the family began to show signs of
heavy wear and tear; but that really mattered very
little, as the weather was for the most part dry,
and they had all a spare pair to put on if those in
active use became too aged to be worn.
One day which followed a succession
of other hot days Sylvia paused at a little wooden
house by the roadside to interview a woman who had
eggs and milk to sell. Even after the purchasing
was completed she lingered talking to the woman, while
the wagon lumbered on along a winding road that gave
peeps of exquisite beauty here and there, where a river
valley opened to view.
Presently she came running to overtake
the wagon, crying, in an excited fashion: “Nealie,
Nealie, what do you think?”
“I think a good many things
when I have time, but I have not had much lately,
and so the thinking has not been done,” replied
Nealie, who was riding this morning because she had
stockings to darn. They washed their stockings
most nights, and hung them on the tilt of the wagon
to dry in the morning, and then it was Nealie’s
business to darn them, while Rupert drove; and as
so much walking induced holes and thin places in every
direction, the task was one of magnitude.
“The woman at the house yonder
told me that when we reached the top of the next high
ground we should see the smoke of the Hammerville
factories right away in the distance.”
“Hurrah!” cried Nealie,
forgetting her occupation, and clapping her hands,
with the result that she stuck her needle into her
finger with such violence that it brought the tears
to her eyes and made her wince.
“And she says that last winter,
when her little boy was ill, a Dr. Plumstead came
out from Hammerville to see him,” chanted Sylvia,
whirling round on the tips of her toes in the dusty
track, and flinging up her hands like an Italian dancing-girl,
which made Rocky snort and plunge as if he wanted
to join in the fun.
“Steady there, steady, old fellow,
we don’t want you bolting at this time of day!”
called Rupert in a warning tone. “Control
your transports, Sylvia, for the sake of Rocky’s
nerves, or we shall have the old fellow developing
a temperature, and then what shall we do?”
“You look as if you had a temperature
yourself. Do you feel bad, Rupert?” asked
Sylvia, coming closer to the wagon, and speaking so
anxiously that Nealie glanced quickly up from her stocking-darning
to look at her brother’s face.
“Oh, I’m right enough!”
he answered quietly. “I feel a bit heavy,
but that is because of the weather. I think we
shall have a storm before night.”
“Oh, I hope not!” cried Nealie in a tone
of dismay.
“It would cool the air, and
that would be a blessing. Don’t you think
it is very close this morning?” he asked, wiping
his face with the hand that was not occupied with
the reins.
“It is hot certainly, but so
it is every day,” she said, glancing up at the
sky, and feeling relieved to see that there were no
storm clouds hovering in sight. “Give me
the reins, Rupert, and do you go astern and lie down
beside Ducky. You will be cooler there, and these
stockings can wait.”
“I think that it is a great
mistake to mend stockings at all in weather like this,
for holes are much cooler than little lumps of darning
cotton,” remarked Sylvia.
“I don’t see the use of
wearing them at all. I am comfortable enough
with bare feet in my shoes, and so would you be if
only you were used to it,” said Rumple, coming
up with a sackful of grass for Rocky’s midday
feed on his back. The younger boys took it in
turns to provide Rocky’s luncheon, and to-day
was Rumple’s turn.
“Sylvia and I are not boys,
you see, and so the same rules do not apply to us,
for girls always have to observe the conventions,”
said Nealie, with the prim little air which she sometimes
put on for the sake of her juniors.
“What are they?” demanded
Billykins, who at this moment ran up from the other
side. But Nealie was spared a lengthy explanation
by the timely arrival of Don upon the scene, calling
shrilly upon the others to come and see a snake which
was swallowing a frog, and getting choked in the process.
“I suppose we ought to kill
the snake,” said Rupert wearily. “But
personally I would rather not.”
“That is how I feel; for after
all we have no quarrel with the snake, and it may
be a very harmless creature after all,” said
Sylvia. “Don’t you remember that
Mrs. Warner told us a great many people keep a snake
in their houses in preference to a cat, just to keep
the mice down.”
“Well, there is no accounting
for tastes,” said Nealie, and then she deftly
guided Rocky on to the side of the road, drawing rein
under the drooping branches of a lightwood tree, where
they could rest for two or three hours until the fiercest
heat of the day was past.
They were not as merry as usual to-day.
The heat was so great that they all wore a more or
less wilted appearance.
Presently a breeze sprang up and moaned
its way through the trees, and Nealie decided, with
nervous haste, that it was time to be moving on.
She had a great horror of thunderstorms, although she
mostly kept it to herself, and to-day she was vaguely
oppressed by a brooding sense of coming disaster,
which was doubtless the effect of the electricity in
the air.
The way at this part was very solitary.
Once they passed a bark-roofed hut standing close
to the road; but when they knocked at the door they
found that no one was at home, and so went on their
way, by no means certain that they were taking the
right direction, for although the route lay clear
enough before them on paper, in actual fact it was
very hard to find, especially here, where there were
so many roads and beginnings of roads that did not
show upon the map.
After some consultation they took
the road which seemed the best and the most used,
and, following it, arrived in time on very high ground,
from whence they had a fine view over a great stretch
of country, dotted here and there with little townships
and solitary stations, a rich and fertile land apparently,
most of it being under close cultivation.
Thunder grumbled in the west, and
the lightning played fitfully along the distant horizon.
“There is Hammerville!”
cried Sylvia, flinging out her hand in the direction
where tall chimneys stood outlined against a copper-hued
sky.
“What a long way off!”
cried Nealie, with a new note of dismay in her voice.
She had thought that it would be possible to reach
the goal of their journeying before the storm broke,
but those chimneys were at least eight or ten miles
away, and Rocky was showing signs of being nearly
done up, for the hills had been heavier than usual,
and the heat had been enough to try the mettle of
the strongest horse.
“We had better camp for the
night in the first convenient place, and then to-morrow
we can arrive in style,” said Sylvia, who was
quite pink with excitement at the thought that when
those distant chimneys were reached she would see
her father again.
“I suppose that will be better;
but, oh, I had so hoped that we should have reached
home to-night, so that Rupert would not have to sleep
on the ground any more! I am so worried about
him,” said Nealie, who had jumped down from
the wagon, and was standing in the road trying to make
up her mind which was the best pitch for a camp, always
a time of anxiety for her since that night when the
stampeding cattle had bowled the wagon over in their
mad rush down the steep hillside.
“Let the boys have the wagon
to-night, and we will sleep underneath. I should
love it!” cried Sylvia, clapping her hands and
whirling round on the tips of her toes, bowing to
an imaginary audience, then giving a sideway skip
to show the lightness of her poise.
But at that moment there was a crackle
of thunder right above their heads, a blaze of lightning,
and then a downpour of rain, as if the roll of the
thunder had opened the floodgates of the clouds.
It was no longer a question of where to camp or where
to sleep. They just had to crowd into the wagon
and stay there until the tempest had spent itself.