Tom Gerrard. Becke Louis
father was a fishcurer at Inverness, and before that a herring fisher.”
“But she speaks, acts, and bears herself like a lady,” protested Gerrard.
“It doesn't matter—she is not one. How Major Gordon, who comes from an old Scottish family, could marry her, I cannot understand. She was a nursery governess, or something like that.”
“Yet Gordon seems a very happy man, and the girls——”
“The girls are all very well, although too horsey for me. I cannot tolerate young women bounding about all over the country after kangaroos, in company with a lot of rough men in shirts and moleskins, attending race meetings, and calling the Roman Catholic clergyman 'Father Jim' to his face. It's simply horrible.”
“Well! what about Mrs. Brooke and Ethel Brooke?” asked Gerrard; “surely they are ladies in every sense of the word?”
“I admit that they are better than the Gordons, but Ethel Brooke is a notorious jilt, and her mother has absolutely no control of her; then Mr. Brooke himself is more like one of his own stockmen in appearance than a gentleman by birth and education.”
Gerrard looked up at the ceiling—then gave up any further argument in despair. “I'll tell you what you want, Lizzie,” he said, cheerfully, “you want about six months in Melbourne or Sydney.”
“I detest Melbourne; it is hot, dusty, dirty, noisy, and vulgar.”
“Then Sydney?”
“Of course, I like Sydney; but Edward never will stay there more than a week—he is always dying to be back among his cattle and horses.”
“I'll try my hand with him, and see what I can do with the man,” then he added,
“Now, let us get on with breakfast. Then we'll see this cubby house, and I'll diagnose the bear's complaint.”
As soon as breakfast was over, Mrs. Westonley left the room to put on her hat, and Gerrard stretched himself out in a squatter's chair on the verandah to smoke his pipe. Presently he heard his sister calling, “Jim, where are you? I want you.”
“Yes, Mrs. Westonley!” came the reply in a boyish treble, and the owner of it wondered what made her voice sound so differently from its usual hard, sharp tone.
“Jim, come here and see my brother. He, you, and Mary, and I are all going down to the cubby house.”
Suppressing a gasp of astonishment, the boy came to her to where Gerrard and she were now sitting.
“Thomas, this is Jim.”
Gerrard jumped up and held out his hand.
“How are you, Jim? Glad to see you,” and he smiled into the boy's sunburnt face. “By Jove! you are a big chap for a ten year old boy. What are you going to be—soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, eh?”
“I did want to be a sailor, sir; but now I'm going to be a stockman.”
Gerrard smiled again, and surveyed the boy closely. He was rather tall for his age, but not weedy, with a broad sturdy chest, and his face was almost as deeply bronzed as that of Gerrard himself, and two big, honest brown eyes met his gaze steadily and respectfully; the squatter took a liking to him at once, as he had to his sister's child.
“Well, Jim, I'm going to stay here a week, and you'll have to tote me around, and keep me amused—see? You and Mary between you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any fish in Marumbah River?”
“Lots and lots—two kinds of bream, Murray cod, jew fish, and speckled trout, and awful big eels.”
“Ha! that's good enough. Got fishing lines and hooks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then bring 'em along. Where is Mary, Lizzie?”
“Here she is,” and Mrs. Westonley brought her forward, the child's eyes dancing with pleasure; “she was too excited to eat any breakfast, until I insisted. Thomas, they'll worry you to death. You don't know them.”
Gerrard threw his feet up in the air, like a boy, and rapped his heels together—“I'm fit for anything—from fishing to riding bull calves, or cutting out a wild bees' nest from a gum tree a mile high. Oh! we're going to have a high old time. I say, Mary, where's the invalid Bunny?”
“In the saddle-room.”
“Then come along, and I'll prescribe for the poor, tailless gentleman,” and he jumped to his feet. “We shall not be long, Lizzie—are you ready?”
“I shall be in ten minutes, Thomas,” and the children looked wonderingly at her, for she actually smiled at them.
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