The Ghost Camp. Rolf Boldrewood
was there,” and the old light began to shine in the trooper’s eyes. “Battle, murder, and sudden death, every kind of villany that the wicked heart of man could plan, or his cruel hand carry out. But you’ll come ben and tak’ a cup of tea? The weather’s gey and cauld the noo.”
Mr. Blount would be only too pleased. So the horses were “hung up” to the neat fence of the garden, and the visitors walked into the spotless, neat parlour.
“Sit ye doon,” said the Sergeant – “Beenie, bring in tea, and some scones.” A fresh-coloured country damsel, who presently appeared bearing a jug of milk and the other requisites, had evidently been within hearing. “My wife and bairns are doon country,” he explained, “or she would have been prood to mak’ you welcome, sir. I’m by ma lane the noo – but she’ll be back next week, thank God; it’s awfu’ lonesome, when she’s awa.”
“You knew Coke, Chamberlain, and Armstrong, all that crowd – didn’t you, Sergeant?” queried the landlord.
“That did I – and they knew me before I’d done with them, murdering dogs that they were! People used to say that I’d never die in my bed. That this one or that had sworn to shoot me – or roast me alive if they could tak’ me. But I never gave them a chance. I was young and strong in those days – as active as a mountain cat in my Hieland home, and could ride for twenty-four hours at a stretch, if I had special wark in hand. Old Donald Bane here could tell fine tales if he could talk” – pointing to a grand-looking old grey, feeding in a patch of lucerne. “The General let me have him when he was cast, that’s ten years syne. We got our pensions then, and we’re just hanging it out thegither.”
“I suppose there are no bad characters in this neighbourhood now, Sergeant?” said Blount. “Everything looks very quiet and peaceful.”
“I wouldna say that,” answered the veteran, cautiously. “There’s many a mile of rough country, between here and the Upper Sturt, and there’s apt to be rough characters to match the country. Cattle are high, too. A dozen head of fat cattle comes to over a hundred pound – that’s easy earned if they’re driven all night, and sold to butchers that have one yard at the back of a range, and another in the stringy-bark township, to take the down off.”
“Yet one wouldn’t think such things could be carried on easily in this part of the country – where there seem to be so many watchful eyes; but I must have a longer ride this lovely morning, so I shall be much obliged if you and our host here will dine with me at seven o’clock, when we can have leisure to talk. You’re all by yourself, Sergeant, you know, so there’s no excuse.”
The Sergeant accepted with pleasure; the host was afraid he would be too busy about the bar at the dinner hour, but would look in afterwards, before the evening was spent. So it was settled, and the recent acquaintances rode away.
“What a fine old fellow the Sergeant is!” said Blount; “how wonderfully neat and trim everything inside the house and out is kept.”
“You’ll generally notice that about a place when the owner has been in the police; the inspector blows up the troopers if there is a button off, or a boot not cleaned. You’d think they’d let a prisoner go, to hear him talk. Barracks – stable – carbine – horse – all have to be neat and clean, polished up to the nines. Once they get the habit of that they never leave it off, and after they settle down in a country place, as it might be here, they set a good example to the farmers and bush people.”
“So the police force promotes order in more ways than one – they root out dishonesty and crime as well – they’re a grand institution of the country.”
“Well, yes, they are,” assented the landlord without enthusiasm, “though they’re not all built the way the Sergeant is. I don’t say but what they’re a trifle hard on publicans now and again for selling a drink to a traveller on a Sunday. But if it’s the law, they’re bound to uphold it. We’d be a deal worse off without them, and that’s the truth.”
Blount and the landlord rode down the course of the stream with much interest, as far as the Englishman was concerned. For the other, the landscape was a thing of course. The rich meadow land which bordered the stream – the far blue mountains – the fat bullocks and sleek horses feeding in the fields – the sheep on their way to market, were to him an ancient and settled order of things, as little provocative of curiosity as if they had existed from the foundation of the world. He had been familiar from childhood with them, or with similar stock and scenery.
But the stranger’s interest and constant inquiry were unceasing. Everything was new to him. The fences, the crops, the maize, of which the tall stems were still standing in their rows, though occasionally stripped and thrown down by the pigs which were rooting among them and gleaning the smaller cobs left behind in the harvest plucking. A certain carelessness of husbandry was noticed by the critic from over sea. The hedges were mostly untrimmed, the plough too often left in the furrow; the weeds, “thick-coming carpet after rain,” untouched by the scarifier; the fences broken, hedges indifferently trimmed.
“This sort of farming wouldn’t go down in England.”
“Perhaps not. Never was there,” replied the Australian Boniface; “but these chaps are mostly so well off, that they don’t mind losing a trifle this way, rather than have too many men to pay and feed. Labour’s cheap in England, I’m told; here it’s dear. So the farmer crowds on all he can get till harvest and shearin’s past, then he pays off all hands, except an old crawler or two, to milk cows and draw wood and water. Afterwards he hires no more till ploughing begins again.”
“There does seem to be a reason for that, and other things I have observed,” assented Mr. Blount. “I suppose in time everything will be nearer English, or perhaps American ideas. More likely the last. Machinery for everything, and no time for decent leisurely country work.”
“Yes, sir – that’s about it,” said Mr. Middleton, looking at his watch, “and now we’ve just time to get back for your lunch, and to tell my old woman that the Sergeant’s coming to dine with you.”
“Doesn’t your mare trot?” said Blount, as they moved off, “it seems to me that Australian horses have only two paces, walk and canter. She doesn’t seem lame now.”
“I think sometimes it’s only her villany; she’s going as sound as a bell now. Yes! she can trot a bit when she likes.”
The cob, a fair performer, had just started, when Mr. Middleton gave the mare’s left ear a gentle screw, which induced her to alter her pace from a slow canter to a trot. “Trot, old woman!” he said, and settling to that useful pace, she caught up the cob. Mr. Blount gradually increased his pace – the old mare kept level with him, till after a dig with the spurs, and a refresher with the hunting crop, it became apparent that the cob was “on his top,” in stable phrase, doing a fair ten or eleven miles an hour.
“Are ye trotting now?” said the landlord, taking the old mare by the head.
“Yes! oh, yes – and pretty fair going, isn’t it?”
“Not bad, but this old cripple can do better.” On which, as if she had heard the words, the old mare stretched out her neck and passed the cob “like a shot!” as her owner afterwards stated when describing the affair to an admiring audience in the bar room.
The cob, after an ineffectual attempt to keep up, was fain to break into a hand gallop, upon which the old mare was pulled up, and the rider explained that it took a professional to beat old “Slavey”; but that owing to her uncertain temper, he had been unable to “take on” aspiring amateurs, and so missed good wagers.
“You might have ‘taken me on’ for a pound or two,” said Mr. Blount, “if you had cared to back her, for I certainly should not have thought she could have beaten my cob. She doesn’t seem built for trotting – does she?”
“She is a bit of a take down,” admitted Mr. Middleton, “but I don’t bet with gentlemen as stays in my house. Though her coat’s rough, she’s a turn better bred than she looks. Got good blood on both sides, and you can drive her in single or double harness,