Babes in the Bush

‘Bad scran to ye,’ he said, ‘do ye want every murdtherin’ thief of the tribe to know the tree I’m under? Maybe he’s not far off, and ye’re winding him. I never knew yer tongue to be false, or I’d dhrive in the ribs of ye. Ha, ye big divil!’ he screamed, ‘ye’re there afther all; ’twas a bould trick of ye to hide in that stone gunya. Ye nearly skivered that gay boy from the ould country. Holy saints! sure he’s a dead man now! Was there ever such a gommoch!’

This uncomplimentary exclamation was called forth by the apparition of a herculean savage, who leaped out of the lava blocks of the rude, circular miami – a long-abandoned dwelling-place, probably a century old, and but slightly raised above the basaltic rocks of the promontory. Starting up, as if out of the night, he flung two spears at the only white man unsheltered. Like a diving seal he cast himself downwards, and was again invisibly safe.

One of the javelins nearly made an end of Gerald O’More. It was from such weapons, hurled with a sinewy arm, that the half-dozen cattle in the camp had fallen. They found, next morning, that a spear, piercing the flank, had gone clean through an unlucky heifer, and passed out at the other side.

However that may have been, Gerald the Dauntless was not the man to remain to be made a target of. Rushing forward, with a shout that told of West of Ireland associations, he charged the miniature citadel, determined to kill or capture his enemy. Before he reached the apparently deserted gunya, a dark form might have been observed by eyes more keen for signs of woodcraft, to worm itself, serpentlike, along the path which O’More trod heedlessly.

As if raised by magic from the earth, suddenly the huge Donderah stood erect in his path, and with the bound of a famished tiger, sprang within Gerald’s guard. The barrel of his fowling-piece was knocked up, and with one tremendous blow the Caucasian lay prone upon the earth. His foe commenced to drag him within the circle of the (possibly) sacrificial stones.

But before he could effect his purpose, a hoarse cry caused the savage to pause and falter. Hubert Warleigh, with his gun clubbed, was bounding frantically towards the triumphant champion.

But the distance was against the white man, though his panther-like bounds reduced the race to a question of seconds.

‘Hould on, Mr. Hubert!’ yelled old Tom, who had quitted his coign of vantage, followed by the excited dogs, no longer to be restrained. ‘Sure, we’ll have him, the murdtherin’ thafe. The others is fell back, since thim two dropped to Mr. Hamilton’s pay-rifle – more power to him. Here, boys! hould him! hould him! Smoker! Spanker! soole him!’

The old man yelled like a fiend; and as the startled savage saw the grim hounds stretching to the earth in full pursuit of him, he dropped his prey in terror of the unaccustomed foe.

‘At him, Spanker! hould him, Smoker!’ screamed the old man, ‘tear the throat of him. Marciful Saver! did any one ever see the like of that! But I’ll have the heart’s blood of ye, if ye were the Diaoul out of h – l, this – night.’

This mixture of religious adjuration and profanity from the lips of the excited old stock-rider was elicited by another cast of the fatal dice.

As the brawny savage glanced at the dogs, which were rapidly nearing him, and upon the powerful form of Hubert Warleigh, who bade fair to challenge him before he could reach his covert, loaded as he was, he unwillingly relinquished his victim. With a couple of bounds he reached the gunya, where, crouching behind the largest boulder, he awaited the attack. But it was not like Hubert Warleigh to leave the wounded man. Stooping for a moment, he raised O’More in his arms, with a violent effort threw him across his shoulder, and marched towards the encampment.

As he half turned in the effort, the savage raised himself to his full height, and, poising a spear, stood for a moment as if uncertain whether he should expend its force upon the old stock-rider and his dogs or against his white antagonist.

At that moment a yell from the main body of blacks showed that they had been forced to retreat. He was therefore separated from his companions, towards whom the wary stock-rider was advancing with a view of cutting him off.

‘Look out!’ shouted the old man to Hubert, as he marked the savage take sudden aim. ‘By – ! he’ll nail you!’

At the warning cry Hubert swung half round, turning his broad breast to the foe and shielding his unconscious burden as best he might. The wild warrior drew himself back for an instant, and then – like a cloth-yard shaft from a strong yew bow – the thin, dark, wavering missile sped only too truly. Deeply, venomously it pierced the mighty chest, beneath which throbbed the true and fearless heart of Hubert Warleigh. Freeing one hand, he broke the spear-shaft across like a reed-stalk, and without stay or stagger strode forward with his burden.

As the last battle scene was enacted, the dawn light struggled through a misty cloud-rack, and permitted clearer view of the tragedy to the rank and file of the expedition.

When the deadly missile struck their leader, a wild shout broke from the whites, and a charge in line was made towards the stone gunya, immediately in the rear of which the main body of the natives had collected for a desperate stand.

As if in answer, a strange, unnatural cry, half human only, burst upon their ears. They turned to behold a singular spectacle. Carried away by his exultation at the triumph of his aim and his revenge upon the foeman who had baulked him of his prey, the champion of a primeval race lingered ere he turned to flight in the direction of his companions.

He was too late. The bandogs of destiny were upon him, grim, merciless, with red glaring eyes and gleaming fangs. In his attention to his spear he had forgotten to pick up his nullah-nullah (or club), with which he would have been a match for any canine foe. A few frantic bounds were made by the doomed quarry as the eager dogs looked wolfishly up into his terror-stricken countenance. Another step, and the red dog, springing suddenly, seized his throat with unrelaxing grip, while Spanker’s sharp tusks sank into his flank, tearing at the quivering flesh as he fell heavily upon the earth.

‘Whoo-whoop, boys! Whoop!’ screamed old Tom, breathless and excited to the blood-madness of the Berserker. ‘That’s the talk. Worry, worry, worry! good dogs, good dogs! At him Spanker, boy, ye’re blood up to the eyes. Stick to him, Smoker, throttle him like a dingo. How the eyes of him rolls. Mercy be hanged!’ he replied in answer to the protest of one of the men. ‘What mercy did he show to Mr. Hubert, and him helpless, with that gossoon in his arms? Maybe ye didn’t think of the harm ye were doing, ye black snake that ye are,’ he continued, apostrophising the writhing form, which the ruthless hounds dragged to and fro with the ferocity of their kind; the brindle dog revelling in the dreadful banquet, wherein his head was ever and anon plunged to the glaring eyes, while the red hound held his fell grip upon the lacerated throat.

‘Maybe it’s kind father to ye to dhrive yer spear through any mortial craychur that belongs to a strange thribe, white or black. There’s more like ye, that’s had betther tachin’, so I’ll give ye a riddance out of yer misery. And it’s more than ye’d do for me av ye had me lyin’ there under the fut of ye.’

With this closing sentiment, nearer to recognition of a sable brother than he had ever been known to exhibit, the old stock-rider raised his gun. ‘Come off, ye divils! d’ye hear me, now?’ he said, striking the brindle dog heavily with his gun, who then only drew off, licking his gory lips and looking greedily at the bleeding form; while the red dog, more obedient or less fell of nature, relinquished his hold at the first summons.

‘Ye’ve had yer punishment, I’ll go bail, in this world, whatever happens in the next,’ said the old man grimly, as he pulled the trigger of his piece in a matter-of-fact manner. The charge passed through the skull of the mangled wretch, who, leaping from the earth and throwing out his arms in the death agony, fell on his face with a crash.

‘There’s an ind of ye,’ said the ruthless elder. ‘The blood of a betther man will be cowld enough before the day’s out. Come away, dogs, ye’ve had divarshion enough for one huntin’. Sure, they’re far away – the black imps of Satan,’ he said, as he listened intently to a distant chorus of wailing cries. ‘It’s time to get the camp in order. I wonder when we’ll git thim bullocks agin?’

It was indeed time to comply with the old man’s suggestion. Leaving the quivering corpse, the men turned away with a sense of relief, to commence their less tragic duties. At the camp much was to be arranged; all disorder was rife since the attack.

Huddled together were heaps of flour-bags, camp-kettles, and pannikins. The tents were overthrown, torn, and bedraggled. The frantic cattle had stampeded over the spot chosen with circumspection by the cook, as the strewn débris of beef and damper witnessed.

The horses were nearly all absent – some hobbled, some loose. Not a hoof of the horned herd was to be seen. Everything in the well-ordered camp, so lately presenting a disciplined appearance, seemed to have been the sport of evil genii.

Worse a hundredfold than all, beneath a hastily pitched tent, tended with anxious faces by his comrades, was stretched a wounded man, whose labouring breath came ever thickly and more blood-laden as the sun rose upon the battlefield, which secured for the white man one of the richest provinces of Australia. Yes! the stark limbs were feeble, the keen eye was dim, the stout heart was throbbing wildly, or feebly pulsating with life’s waning flame. Hubert Warleigh lay a-dying! His hour was come. The hunter of the hills, the fearless wood-ranger, was helpless as a sick child. The weapon of his heathen foe had sped home.

Argyll, Hamilton, Ardmillan, and the others stood around his rude pallet with saddened hearts. Each voice was hushed as they watched the spirit painfully quitting the stalwart form of him whom they had all learned to know and to trust.

‘We have bought our country dearly,’ said Wilfred, as a spasm distorted the features of the dying man and caused his strong limbs to quiver and writhe. Over his chest was thrown a rug, redly splashed, which told of the death-wound, from which the life-blood welled in spite of every attempt to staunch it. Beside him sat Gerald O’More, buried in deepest grief.

‘Better take the lie of the country from me,’ said the wounded man feebly. ‘One of you might write it down, with the bearings of the rivers, while my head keeps right. How hard it seems! Just made a start for a new country and a new life. And now to be finished off like this! The Warleigh luck all over. I might have known nothing could come of it, but – ’ Here his voice grew choked and indistinct, while from the saturated wrappings the blood dripped slowly and with a dreadful distinctness upon the earthen floor. A long pause. Again he held up his hand. ‘It will take every man that can be spared to get the cattle and horses together again. A week ought to do it; it’s easy tracking with no others about. You can knock up a “break” to count through. Make sure you’ve got the lot before you start away. Leave Effingham and Argyll with me. I’ll tell them about the course; you’re near the open country. I little thought when I saw it next I should be – should be – like this.’

They obeyed the dying leader to the last. All left the tent except Wilfred and Argyll. The success of the expedition depended on the cattle being recovered without loss of time. Though a monarch dies, the work of this world must go on. Few indeed are they for whom the wheels of the mighty machine can be stopped. Hubert Warleigh was the last man to desire it.

‘It’s no good stopping to “corroboree” over me,’ he said, with a touch of humour lighting up the glazing eye. ‘It’s lucky you haven’t O’More to wake as well as me. You won’t laugh at blacks’ weapons any more, eh, Gerald?’

‘Small laughing will do me for many a day, my dear boy. You have forgiven the rash fool that nearly lost his own life and wasted that of a better man? I deserve all I’ve got. But for you – cut off in the prime of your days, how shall I ever forget it? Forgive me, Hubert Warleigh, as you hope to be forgiven.’

Here the warm-hearted passionate Milesian cast himself on his knees beside the dying man, and burying his face in his hands, sobbed aloud in an agony of grief and humiliation. ‘Don’t fret over it, O’More,’ said the measured tones of the dying man. ‘It’s all in the day’s work. People always said I’d be hanged, you know; but I’m going off the hooks honourably, anyhow. You couldn’t help it; and, indeed, I was away when you charged that poor devil Donderah. I’m afraid old Tom’s dogs mauled him badly. But look here,’ – turning to Wilfred, – ‘you get a pencil and I’ll show you how the rivers run. There’s the Bogong Range – and the three rivers with the best country in Australia between them. When you come to the lower lakes, you can follow them to the sea. There’s an outlet, but it’s choked up with sand-bars. Somewhere near the mouth there’s a decent harbour and a good spot for a township. It will be a big one some day. Now you’re all right and can shift for yourselves. Effingham, I want to say a word to you before I go.’

Wilfred bent over him and O’More and Argyll left the tent. ‘Come near me,’ he whispered, in tones which, losing strength with the decay of life’s force, sounded hollow and dull. ‘I feel it so hard and bitter to die. I should have had a chance – my only chance – here, and as head explorer I might have risen to a decent position. Such a simple way to go under too. If that rash beggar hadn’t mulled it with Donderah I should have been right. Some men would have left him there. But I couldn’t do it – I couldn’t do it.’

‘Old Tom and his dogs avenged you,’ said Wilfred. ‘They ate Donderah alive almost, before the old man shot him.’

‘Poor devil!’ said the dying man; ‘so he came off worse than I did. Old Tom wouldn’t show him much mercy. I shan’t be long after him. Hang it! what a puff of smoke a fellow’s life is when he dies young. It seems the other day I was learning to ride at Warbrok, and Clem and Randal coming home from the King’s School for the holidays. Well, the three Warleighs are done for now. The wild Warleighs! wild enough, and not a paying game either. But I’m running on too fast about all these things, and my heart’s going, I feel. Are you sure you’ve got the chart all right, with the rivers and the lakes all correct – and the harbour – ’

‘I think so. We can make our way to the coast now. But why trouble yourself about such matters? Surely they are trifles compared with the thoughts which should occupy your last moments?’

‘I don’t know much about that,’ said the stricken bushman, raising himself for an instant and looking wistfully in his companion’s face. ‘If a man dies doing his duty he may as well back it right out. What gave me the only real help I ever had? Your father’s kind words and your family’s kind acts. They made a man of me. It’s on that road that I’m dying now, respected as a friend by all of you, instead of like a dog in a ditch or a “dead-house.” Now I have two things to say before I go. I want you to have the best run. It’s all good, but the best’s the best, and you may as well have it. I was to have my pick.’

Wilfred made a gesture of deprecation, but the other continued, with slow persistence:

‘You see where the second river runs into the third one? The lake’s marked near it on the south. There’s an angle of flat country there, the grandest cattle-run you ever set eyes on. Dry, sheltered rises for winter; rich flats and marshes for summer. Naturally fenced too. I christened it “The Heart” in my own mind. It’s that shape. So you sit down there, and leave Guy on it when you go home. He’ll do something yet, that boy. He’s a youngster after my own heart. And there’s one more thing – the last – the very last.’

‘Rest yourself, my dear fellow,’ said Wilfred, raising his head and wiping the death-damp from his forehead, as his eyes closed in a death-like faint. But the dying man raised himself unsteadily to a sitting position. An unearthly lustre gleamed in the dim eyes, the white lips moved mechanically, as the words, like the murmur of the breeze-touched shell, issued from them.

‘I told you I loved your sister Annabel. When I looked at her I thought I had never seen a woman before. Tell her she was never out of my head for one moment since the day I first saw her. Every step I made since was towards a life that should have been worthy of her. I would have been rich for her, proud for her, even book-taught for her sake. I was learning in spare moments what I should have known as a boy. She might never have taken to me – most likely not; but she would have known that she had helped to save a man’s life – a man’s soul. Tell her that this man went to his death, grieving most for one thing, that he should see her face no more. And now, give me your hand, Wilfred, for Gyp Warleigh’s time is up.’

He grasped the hand held out to him with a firm and nervous clasp; then relinquishing it gradually, an expression of peace and repose overspread his face, the laboured breathing ceased. His respiration became more natural and easy, but the ashen hue of his face showed yet more colourless and grey. The tired eyes closed; the massive head fell back on the pillow of rugs; the lower portion of the features relaxed; a slight shiver passed over the frame. Wilfred bent closely, tenderly, over the still face. The faithful spirit of the last male heir of the house of Warleigh had passed away.

When the stock-riders returned that evening after the long day’s tracking and heard of their leader’s death, many a wild heart was deeply stirred. At day-dawn they dug him a deep grave beneath a mighty spreading mountain ash, and piled such a cairn above him that no careless hand could disturb the dead. As they removed his clothes for the last sad robing process, two small volumes fell from an inner pocket.

‘Ha!’ said Neil Barrington, ‘one of them is the book I saw him poring over that day. I wonder whether it’s a novel? By Jove, though, who’d have thought that? Why, it’s an old History of England. The poor old chap was getting up his education by degrees. It makes the tears come into one’s eyes.’

Here the good-hearted fellow drew his handkerchief across his face.

CHAPTER XXIV

GYP’S LAND

The cattle were tracked down and regathered without difficulty. In the virgin forest no slot but their own could possibly exist. When they quitted the scene of their encounter, the explorers passed into a region of grand savannahs and endless forest parks, waving with luxuriant grasses. Each day awakened fresh raptures of admiration. But the rudest stock-rider never alluded to the ease with which they now followed the well-fed herd, without a curse (in the nature of an epitaph) upon those who had robbed them of a comrade and a commander.

‘A magnificent country,’ said Argyll, as on the third day they camped the foremost drove on the bank of a broad river in the marshy meadows, on which the cattle spread out, luxuriating in the wild abundance of pasture; ‘and how picturesque those snow-peaks; the groves of timber, sending their promontories into the plains; the fantastic rocks! It is a pastoral paradise. And to think that the only man of our party who fell a victim should be poor Warleigh, the discoverer of this land of promise!’

‘The way of the world, my dear fellow,’ said Ardmillan. ‘The moment a man gets his foot on the threshold of success, Nemesis is aroused. Poor Gyp had been fighting against his demon for years, and had reached the region of respectability. He would soon have been rich enough to conciliate Mrs. Grundy. She would have enlarged upon his ancient birth, his handsome face and figure, with the mildest admission that he had been, years ago, a little wild. Of course he is slain within sight of his promised land.’

‘We had all got very fond of him, and that’s the truth,’ said Hamilton. ‘He was the gentlest creature, considering his tremendous strength – self-denying in every way, and so modest about his own endowments. It was very touching to listen to his regrets for the ignorance in which he had been suffered to grow up. I had planned, indeed, to supply some of his deficiencies after we were settled.’

‘I should think so,’ said Fred Churbett. ‘I wouldn’t have minded doing a little myself. I don’t go in for “moral pocket-ankercher” business, but a man of his calibre was better worth saving than a province of savages. Amongst us we should have coached him up, in a year or so, fit to run for the society little-go; and now to think that one of these wretched anthropoids should have slain our Bayard!’

‘What made it such a beastly shame,’ said Neil Barrington, ‘is that we shall all get “disgustingly rich,” as Hotson said, and be known as the pioneers of Gyp’s Land (as the men have christened the district), while the real hero lies in a half-forgotten grave.’

‘Time may make us as unthankful as the rest of the world,’ said Wilfred. ‘We can only console ourselves with the thought that we sincerely mourned our poor friend, and that Hubert Warleigh’s memory will remain green, long after recognition of his services has faded away. It has had a lasting effect upon O’More. The poor fellow believes himself to blame for the disaster. I have scarcely seen him smile since.’

‘He’s a good, kind-hearted fellow,’ said Fred Churbett, ‘and I honour him for it. He told me that he never regretted anything so much in his life as disregarding Warleigh’s advice about the blacks. He said the poor chap made no answer to some stupid remarks about being afraid of naked savages, but smiled gravely, and walked away without another word. Yet, to save O’More’s life, he gave his own!’

‘Whom the gods love die young,’ said Hamilton. ‘Some of us may yet have cause to envy him. And now, about the choice of runs. How are we to arrange that?’

‘We are now in the good country,’ said Argyll. ‘Towards the coast, we shall all meet with more first-class grazing land than we know what to do with. I think no one should be nearer than seven miles or more than ten miles from any other member of the Association. I for one will go nearer to the coast.’

‘And I,’ said Fred Churbett, ‘will stay just where I am. This is good enough for me, as long as I can defend myself against the lords of the soil.’

There was no difficulty in locating the herds of the association upon their ‘pastures new.’ In every direction waved the giant herbage of a virgin wilderness. There were full-fed, eager-running rivers, for which the melting snow at their sources furnished abundant supplies. There were deep fresh-water lakes, on the shores of which were meadows and headlands rich with matted herbage.

Wild-fowl swarmed in the pools and shallows. Kangaroos were so plentiful that old Tom’s dogs ‘were weary at eve when they ceased to slay,’ and commenced to look with indifference upon the scarcely-thinned droves. Timber for huts and stock-yards was plentiful; so that axes, mauls, and wedges were soon in full and cheerful employment. Each squatter selected an area large enough for his stock for the next dozen years, keeping sufficiently close to his friends for visiting, but not near enough for complications. In truth, the rivers and creeks were of such volume that they easily supplied natural boundaries.

As for Wilfred and Guy, they carefully followed out the instructions of their lost friend, until they verified the exact site of the ‘run’ he had recommended to them. This they discovered to be a peninsula. On one side stretched the shore of a lake, and on the other a deep and rapid river flowed, forming a natural enclosure many miles in extent, into which, when they had turned their herd, they had little trouble in keeping them safely.

‘My word!’ said Guy, ‘this is something like a country. Why, we have run for five or six thousand head, and not a patch of scrub or a range on the whole lot of it. Splendid open forest, just enough for shelter; great marshes and flats, where the stock are up to their eyes in grass and reeds. When the summer comes, it will be like a garden. It rains here every year and no mistake.’

‘We are pretty far south,’ said Wilfred; ‘in somewhere about latitude 37 – no great distance from the sea. That accounts for the climate. You can see by the blacks’ miamis, which are substantial and covered with thatch, that a different kind of dwelling-place is necessary, even for the aboriginals. You will have to build good warm huts, I fancy, or the winter gales and sleet-storms will perish you.’