She settled herself in the hammock and read Molly Gaverick's letter over again. Then she read one from Joan Gildea. Joan was in the full swing of London journalism again. She gave Bridget rather fuller news of Eliza Countess of Gaverick, and dwelt at some length upon the old lady's interest in Bridget's wild life and in Bridget's husband.

'You may be sure,' wrote Joan, 'that I had nothing but good to say of Colin, and oh! Biddy, dearest, how rejoiced I am to know that he is making you so happy. I could read between the lines of all your amusing descriptions and sketches of "the Dream-drive." I had my doubts and my fears, as I never concealed from you, but I believe that you have found the true, well-beloved at last.'

There was a good deal, too, in the letter about Rosamond Tallant, who was in cheerful spirits, it seemed, in spite of the impending operation, and would not hear of Sir Luke's asking for leave to be with her--and so on--and so on. Not a word about Willoughby Maule and his bereavement--which, after all, could not be so very recent. Why had Joan never mentioned it? Was she afraid of rousing regret and of awakening painful memories.

* Cleanskin--Unbranded calf.

CHAPTER 11

McKeith's absence was longer than he had expected. Lady Bridget heard from Harry the Blower on his return round with the down-going mails that the little bush township of Tunumburra had become the scene of a convocation of Pastoralists called to concert measures against the threatened strike. The mailman reported that the district was now in a state of great commotion, and the strikers, gathering silently in armed force, prepared to defend their rights against a number of free labourers whom the sheep-owners were importing from the South. The men who had killed McKeith's horses were, according to the mailman, entrenched in the Range, awaiting developments. It was thought that nothing would happen on a large scale until the arrival of the free labourers and the troops, which it was said the Government was sending.

Harry the Blower talked darkly of marauding bands, ambushed foes and perilous encounters on his road, all of which waxed in number and blood-thirstiness after the manner of Falstaff's men in buckram. But n.o.body ever took Harry the Blower's yarns very seriously.

It would have been natural for Lady Bridget to work herself up into a state of humanitarian excitement--the O'Hara's had always espoused unpopular causes--but since the arrival of the English mail a curious dreaminess had come upon her. She spent idle hours in the hammock on the veranda, and would only rouse herself spasmodically to some trivial burst of energy--perhaps a boiling water skirmish against white ants, or a sudden fit of gardening--planting seeds, training the wild cuc.u.mber vines upon the veranda posts, or watering the shrubs and flowers within the rough paling fence that enclosed the house and garden. A new-made garden, for ornament rather than for use, for the staple produce was grown in the Chinaman's garden by the lagoon. Young pa.s.sion-fruit vines barely concealing the fences' nakedness, a mango, a few small orange trees now in flower. A Brazilian cherry, two or three flat-stone peach trees and loquets--all looking thirsty for rain--that was all. The Old Humpey, as it was called, had creepers overgrowing its roof, a nesting-place for frogs, lizards, snakes--and Lady Bridget, brave enough for doughty deeds, could never overcome her terror of horned beasts and reptiles. McKeith's office, where he entered branding tallies and posted the station log, was in the Old Humpey, and two or three bachelor bedrooms opposite the wing with kitchen and store. But Lady Bridget lived chiefly in the new house--less picturesque with its zinc roofing and deficiency of green drapings, but, being built on sawn lengths of saplings, more or less fortified against snakes. In front there was a great vacant s.p.a.ce between the ground and the floor of the house--pleasant enough in summer, when a gentle draught could find its way through the cracks between the boards, but cold in winter, though the northern winters were not sharp enough or long enough for this to be a serious discomfort.

Nor, when Lady Bridget slept alone in the new house, did she mind much the dogs and harmless animals that couched under the boards, they gave her a sense of companionship. But there was a herd of goats--some of them old and with big tough horns--which McKeith had started in his bachelor days to provide milk when, as sometimes happened, the milch cows failed; also to furnish savoury messes of kid's flesh--a pleasant change from the eternal salt beef varied with wild duck. Occasionally it happened, especially in mustering times, that n.o.body remembered to pen the goats in their yard by the lagoon, and on these occasions they would get under the house, and the noise of their horns knocking against the floor of her bedroom would so effectively destroy Lady Bridget's chances of sleep that she would rise in the night and drive them into their fold. These were incidents which added variety to the monotony of her life in the Bush.

The head-station was very quiet one afternoon, most of the hands being out with the tailing mob; and Lady Bridget, in a restless mood, went for a roam through the bush. She walked past the Chinamen's garden and Fo Wung, carrying up buckets of water to his young cabbages, stopped to smile blandly and report on his produce. But she was in no mood for the interchange of remarks in pidgin English.

It was lonelier at the head of the lagoon. She could hear the trumpeter geese tuning up in shrill cornet-like notes and the discordant shriek of native-companions, as the long-legged grey birds stalked consequentially at the water's edge. She disturbed a flock of parrots in the white cedar tree, and a covey of duck rose with a whirring of pinions and a mighty quacking, shaking the drips off their plumage so that they glittered like diamonds in the sun. From the limbs of the dead gum tree hung flying foxes, their bat-like wings extended limply, and a gigantic crane stood in melancholy reflection upon one leg.

Lady Bridget crossed the gully and roamed the borders of the gidia scrub. Here, in an occasional open patch, were wattles breaking into yellow bloom, and sandalwood trees already in blossom, scenting the air faintly and making bright splashes upon the grey and black background of the mournful gidia. She filled her arms with flowers and wandered on, long past the stockyards, into the fastnesses of the gully, where lay dark pools almost empty now and where grey, volcanic looking rocks seemed to make a rampart between the scrub and the head-station.

She was sitting there, her back against a boulder, the forest behind her, so motionless that inquisitive bower-birds and leather-heads came quite close to her feet, her small pointed chin poked forward, her eyes shadowy and mysterious as the still waterpools below. She was visioning in s.p.a.ce that man who had once undoubtedly cast a strong spell upon her. The spell had been broken by his own infidelity--if it WERE infidelity of the real man. For she could never believe that he had not truly loved her. Broken, secondly, by the counteracting influence of her husband. But now it seemed that the news of him in Lady Gaverick's letter had started the old vibrations afresh. It was as if an iron wall between them had suddenly been knocked down and he had gained access to her inner self. For months she had scarcely thought of him. Last night she had seen him in a dream, and he had spoken to her. He had said, 'Of course, I loved you. I never loved anyone better, but I felt that you were not of an accommodating disposition--that I could not give you anything you really wanted, and that we should not be happy together.'

That was all of the dream she had brought back. But she KNEW that there had been a great deal more. The impression had been so vivid that she could not rid herself of the fancy that he was within actual reach of her. It was impossible to imagine him fourteen thousand miles distant.

She did not try now to fight against this haunting, but yielded herself to the power of the dream. When she heard a footstep in the forest behind her, she started and turned and stared into the dim aisles of the gidia, as though she expected to see his ghost.

'Mithsis--mithsis--me Wombo--plenty my been look out for you. Plenty mine frightened to go along a head-station.'

Lady Bridget laughed hysterically. What a contrast between the romantic hero of her dreams and the figure of the black-boy before her. Wombo had been in the wars. Very little was left of the trim understudy of Moongarr Bill. He was hatless; his Crimean shirt was torn into ribbons; his moleskin breeches were covered with blood and dirt; the strap belt, with its sheath-knife and various pouches, was gone, and this, judging from the state of his legs and feet, had been forcibly removed.

A gash from a tomahawk disfigured his head; the woolly hair was matted with blood. But there remained still something of the PREUX CHEVALIER about Wombo.

'Mine bring it gin belonging to me,' he announced with dignity, making an introductory gesture towards what appeared almost an excresence upon the black trunk of a gidia tree except for an old red blanket slung round one shoulder, which only half covered a woman's dusky form.

'That Oola. Mine want 'im marry Oola. Black teller belonging to that feller plenty COOLLA*. My been sneak camp. Me catch 'em Oola. Black feller look out, throw 'im tomahawk, NULLA-NULLA*. My word! big feller fight. Me YAN plenty quick. Oola YAN* plenty quick. Black feller come after--throw 'im spear--close up MUMKULL*. BA'AL* can pull out spear, Oola plenty cry.'

[*Coolla--in Blacks language, meaning Angry.]

[*Nulla-nulla--A black's weapon.]

[*Yan--To go away.]

[*Mumkull--To kill.]

[*Ba'al--No--Not.]

Oola joined in with the black's plaintive wail.

'YUCKE*! Poor fellow, Oola!'

[*Yucke!--Alas!]

Wombo pulled her forward. A comely half-caste who, as a child, had been partially civilised by a stockman's wife on one of the Leura out-stations, but who had, later, gone back to her tribe and married a Myall, as the wild blacks are called. She was very young, soft and round of outline, with hair straighter and more glossy than is usual among her kind, and large black eyes now raining tears. She wiped them away with a sooty hand, pink in the palm. Her left arm hung limp by her side.

Lady Bridget jumped to her feet, all concern.

'Oh, you poor thing! You poor, poor thing,' she cried. For Wombo, tweaking aside the concealing blanket, showed the smooth shaft of a spear transfixed in the quivering flesh of Oola's arm, above the elbow.

He had broken off the long end of the spear to expedite their flight--so he explained in his queer lingo--but Oola had cried so much that he had not been able to draw out the rest of the shaft.

'BUJERI* YOU, white Mary!' pleaded Oola in the native formula. 'You gib it medsin.... You gib it one old fellow skirt.... BA'AL, Oola got 'im clothes... BA'AL got 'im ration... plenty sick this feller....' And she beat her breast with the arm that was unhurt.

[*Bujeri--Very good.]

'Of course, I'll give you medicine--and food, and I'll look out something for you to put on. Only for heaven's sake, stop crying,' said Lady Bridget. 'Come along. You must have that spear pulled out and your arm seen to. Come with me to the Humpey. Quick--MURRA* make haste.'

[*Murra make haste--To run quickly.]

But Wombo drew back, casting an affrighted glance down the gully towards the crossing.

'Ba'al me go long-a Humpey--I believe Boss PHO-PHO*, Oola,' he said.

[*Pho-pho--To shoot.]

'Wombo, you are foolish. What for Boss shoot Oola?'

'YOWI*--I believe when Boss say PHO-PHO, my word! that one PHO-PHO.

Plenty black feller frightened.'

[*Yowi--Yes.]

Bridget pushed the unhappy gin along the track.

'You needn't be frightened. Boss has gone away.'

'Boss no sit down long-a Humpey?' Wombo looked relieved, and while Bridget rea.s.sured him, the three moved on towards the crossing. In answer to Lady Bridget's questioning the black-boy told his story as they went. She already knew of Wombo's pa.s.sion for the young gin, who was within the prohibited degree of relationship, therefore TABU to him, and who, moreover, was already legitimately wedded to a warrior of the tribe. She knew also that McKeith had forbidden the black-boy, under pain of severe penalty, to seek the coveted bride. Of course, it was all nonsense about his shooting the poor creature, though no doubt, in ordinary circ.u.mstances, he would have sent them off the station. But hard as he was--and Lady Bridget had learned that her husband could be very hard, he would never be inhuman, and, naturally, Oola's wound must be dressed.

Lady Bridget hurried them over the crossing and up the hill. The white men were all out with the cattle. She needed a.s.sistance, and seeing Mrs Hensor at the kitchen window of the Bachelors' Quarters, called to her.

'Please come out at once, I want you.'

The woman's face became sullen on the instant.

'I can't come now. I'm in the middle of my baking.'