The house was unusually quiet. It was New Year's Day, and every man on the place, and most of the maids, had gone off to a bush race meeting, ten miles away. Even Mrs. Brown had allowed herself to be persuaded to go and, arrayed in her best silk gown, had climbed laboriously into the high double buggy, driven by Dave Boone, and departed, waving to Norah a stout reticule that looked, Wally said, as though it contained sausages! Only Mary, the housemaid, remained. Mary was a prim soul, and did not care for race meetings. She had remarked that she would stay at home and "crocher"!

Mr. Linton and the boys had ridden away after lunch. A valuable bull had slipped down the side of a steep gully and injured himself, and bush surgery was required. David Linton was rather notable in this direction, and he had seen to it that Jim had had a thorough course of veterinary training in Melbourne. Together they made, the squatter remarked, a very respectable firm of pract.i.tioners! Cecil and Wally were ready to perform unskilled labour as required, and it was quite possible that their help might be needed, since no men were available.

So the picnic planned for the afternoon had had to be abandoned, and Norah was left somewhat desolate, since she could not take part in the "relief expedition."

"Hard on you, old girl," Jim had said; "but it can't be helped."

"No, of course it can't," Norah replied. She was well trained in the emergencies of the country, and would probably have been perfectly cheerful had this particular one only been something that would not have excluded her. As it was, however, it was certainly disappointing, and she felt somewhat "at a loose end" as she watched the four ride off. There seemed nothing for her to do. It was beyond doubt that being a girl had its drawbacks.

Within, the silence of the house was depressing, and the rooms seemed much too large. Norah saw to one or two odd jobs, fed some chickens, talked for a while to Fudge, the parrot, who was a companionable bird, with a great flow of eloquence on occasions, wrote a couple of letters--always a laborious proceeding for the maid of the bush--and finally arrived at the decision that there was nothing to do. In the kitchen Mary sat and "crochered" placidly at a fearful and wonderful set of table mats. Norah watched her for a while, with a great scorn for the gentle art that could produce such monstrosities. Then she practised for half an hour, and at length, taking a book, sauntered off to read by the creek.

Meanwhile Mary worked on contentedly, unconscious of outer things, dreaming, perhaps, such dreams as may come to any one who makes crocheted table mats of green and yellow. Now and then she rose to replenish the fire, returning to her needle in the far-away corner of the great kitchen, where Mrs. Brown's cane armchair always stood. She glanced up in surprise after a while, when a shadow fell across the doorway. Then, for Mary was a girl with "nerves," she jumped up with a little scream.

An Indian hawker stood there--a big, black-bearded fellow, in dusty clothes that had once been white, and on his head a turban of faded pink. His heavy pack hung from his shoulder, but as the girl looked, he slipped it to the ground, and stood erect, with a grunt of relief. Then he grinned faintly at Mary, who had promptly put the table between them, and asked the hawker's universal question:

"Anything to-day, Meesis?"

The Hindu hawker is still a figure to be met frequently in the Bush--where he is, indeed, something of an inst.i.tution. "Remote from towns he runs" a race that no poetical licence can stretch to complete the quotation by calling "G.o.dly." He carries a queer mixture of goods--a kind of condensed bazaar-stall from his native land, with silks and cottons, soaps, scents, boot laces and cheap jewellery, all packed into a marvellously small s.p.a.ce; and so he tramps his way through Australia.

No life can be lonelier. His stock of English is generally barely enough to enable him to complete his deals; the free and independent Australian regards him as "a n.i.g.g.e.r," and despises him accordingly; while the Hindu, in his turn, has in his inmost soul a scorn far deeper for his scorners--the pride of tradition and of caste. It is the caste that keeps him rigidly to himself, since, as a rule, he can touch no food that others have handled. He sits apart, over his own tiny fire, baking his unappetising little cakes; and in many cases even the shadow of a pa.s.ser-by falling across his cookery is held to defile it beyond possibility of his eating it. As a rule he has but one idea in life--to make enough money to carry him back to end his days in comfort by the waters of the Ganges.

There are certain well recognized hawkers in many districts--men who have kept for a long time to a particular beat, and may be regarded as fairly regular, and likely to turn up at each place at their route three or four times a year. Such men have generally arrived at the dignity of a pack-horse--no unmixed benefit in the eyes of people driving, since most of the country horses are reduced to frenzy by the sight of the lean screw with his immense white pack--the hawker is merciless to his horse--led by the "black" man in flapping clothes and gay turban. Still the regular hawkers are a more respectable cla.s.s of men, and their visits are often eagerly welcomed by the housewife in the lonely country, many miles from a township, who finds herself confronted with such problems as the necessity for lacing Johnny's Sunday boots with strips of green hide, or the more serious one of a dearth of trouser-b.u.t.tons for his garments.

It is the casual hawker who is looked on with disfavour, and strikes terror to the heart of many women. He has very frequently no money and less principle; and being without reputation to sustain in the district, is careless of his doings along a route that he probably does not intend to visit again. He knows perfectly well that women and children are afraid of him, and as a rule is very willing to work upon that fear--though the sight of a man, or of a dog with character, is sufficient to make him the most servile of his race. But where he meets a lonely woman he is a very apparition of terror.

There was one hawker who came regularly to Billabong; a cheery old fellow, well known and respected, whose caste was not strict enough to prevent his refusing the station hospitality, and whose appearance was always welcome. He had been coming so long that he knew them all well, and took an almost affectionate interest in Jim and Norah, always bringing some little gift for the latter. The men liked him, for he had been known to "turn to" and work at a bush fire "as hearty as if he weren't a fat little image av a haythen," said Murty O'Toole; Norah was always delighted when old Ram Das came up the track, his unwieldy body on two amazingly lean legs. Even Mary would not have been scared at his appearance.

But this was not Ram Das--this Indian who stood looking at her with that queer little half-smile, so different from the old man's wide and cheerful grin. It was a strange man, and a terrible one in Mary's sight. She gaped at him feebly across the table, and he watched her with keen, calculating eyes. Presently he spoke again, this time a little impatiently.

"You ask-a meesis annything to-day?"

"Nothin' to-day," said Mary, quickly and nervously.

"You ask-a meesis."

"She don't want anything," the girl quavered.

"You ask-a."

"I tell you she don't want anything--there ain't any missis," Mary said.

He looked at her unbelievingly, and broke into a speech of broken English that was quite unintelligible to the frightened girl behind the table. Then, as she did not answer him, he came a few steps nearer.

It was more than enough for Mary. She gave a terrified shriek and ran for the nearest cover--the half-open door of the back kitchen behind her. She banged it violently as she dashed through. There was no lock on the door, so she could not stay there--but the window stood open, and Mary went through it with all the nimbleness of fear. She came out into the yard where the way lay clear to the house; and across the s.p.a.ce went Mary, cometwise, a vision of terror and flying cap strings, each moment expecting to hear pursuing feet. Puck, the Irish terrier, sleeping peacefully on the front verandah, leapt to his feet at the sudden bang of the back door, and came dashing through the house in search of the cause. Mary, half sobbing, welcomed him with fervour.

"Good dog, Puck!" she said. She reconnoitred through the nearest window.

The Indian had come out of the kitchen, and now stood on the back verandah, his dark face working. He looked uncertainly about him. Then the back door opened a few inches--just so far that an enthusiastic Irish terrier could squeeze through--and Mary's voice came.

"Good dog, Puck!--sool 'im!"

The door banged again, and the heavy lock shot home. Mary flew back to the window, shutting and locking it frantically. She watched.

Puck wasted no time. He dashed at the hawker, with every fighting instinct aroused, and the Hindu leaped back quickly, seizing with one hand a broom that leaned against the wall. He met the terrier's onslaught with a savage blow that sent the little dog head over heels yards away. Puck picked himself up and came again like a whirlwind.

Then Mary screamed again, for the Hindu dropped the broom, and something flashed in the sunlight--a long knife that came swiftly from some hiding place in his voluminous draperies. He crouched to meet the dog, his eyes gleaming, his lips drawn back from his teeth.

Puck was no fool. He arrested himself almost in midair, and planted himself just out of the hawker's reach, his whole enraged little body a vision of defiance, and barked madly. The Indian moved backwards, uttering a flood of furious speech, while for each step that he moved the terrier advanced another. Then Mary's heart gave a sudden leap; for the hand that held the knife suddenly went behind him as he reached for his pack and swung it to his shoulder. Puck was nearly upon him in the moment that the knife no longer menaced, but the Hindu was quick; and again the little dog drew back, rending the air with his barking.

Slowly the man backed off the verandah and along the path to the yard gate, Puck following every step, loathing with all his fury that unfair advantage of gleaming steel that kept him from his enemy. The Hindu backed through the gate, and slammed it in the terrier's face, spitting a volley of angry words as he went. Mary flung the window open and called her protector anxiously, lest he should find some means of exit and leave her alone; and Puck came back a few steps, turning again to bark at his retreating foe. The tall form in the dusty clothes went slowly down the track. Mary watched him out of sight. Then she fled to her own room, locked herself in securely, and went, very properly, into hysterics.

Meanwhile, at the creek, Norah was nodding sleepily over her book. It was hot, and naturally a lazy day; everything seemed sleepy, from the cows lying about under the willows on the banks to the bees droning overhead. Tait, near her, was snoring gently. Even the water below seemed to be rippling more lazily than usual; the splash of a leaping fish made an unusual stir in the stillness. Moreover, her book was not calculated to keep her awake. It was poetry, and Norah's soul did not incline naturally to poetry, unless it were one of Gordon's stirring rhymes, or something equally Australian in character. This was quite different, but it had been Cecil's Christmas gift, and it had seemed to Norah that politeness required her to study it.

"It's the rummiest stuff!" said the Bush damsel, hopelessly. She turned to the cover, a dainty thing of pale blue and gold. "William Morris?

Didn't we have a stockman once called Bill Morris? But I'm pretty certain he never wrote this. The name's the same, though!" thought Norah, uncertainly. She turned back, and read anew, painstakingly:

No meat did ever pa.s.s my lips Those days. (Alas! the sunlight slips From off the gilded parclose dips, And night comes on apace.)

"Then I'm positive it wasn't our Bill Morris, 'cause I never saw a stockman who was a vegetarian. But what's a parclose? I'll have to ask Cecil; but then he'll think me such a duffer not to know, and he'll be so awfully patronizing. But what on earth does it all mean?"

She closed the book in despair, let her eyelids droop, and nodded a little, while the book in its blue and gold cover slipped from her knee to the gra.s.s. It was much easier to go to sleep than to read William Morris. What a long time Dad and the boys were, doctoring Derrimut! It was certainly dull.

A quick bark from Tait startled her. The collie had jumped up, and was bristling with wrath at an unusual spectacle coming through the trees towards her--a tall man, with a face of dusky bronze, surmounted by a pink turban. His face was working angrily, and he muttered as he walked, slowly, as if the pack on his shoulder were heavy. When Tait barked he started for a moment, but then came on steadily--a collie is rarely as formidable as an Irish terrier.

Norah paled a little. She was not timid, but no Australian girl takes naturally to an encounter with a Hindu and there was no doubt that this man was in a very bad temper. The place was lonely, too, and out of sight of the house, even if she had not been painfully conscious that there was not a man on the place should she need help. Still, there was nothing to be gained by running. She backed against the tree, keeping one hand on Tait's collar as the man came up.

"What do you want?"

He stopped, and the pack slipped to the gra.s.s. Then he broke into a flood of rapid speech in his own tongue, gesticulating violently; occasionally indicating the house with a sweep of his hand in that direction. As he talked he worked himself up to further wrath--his voice rose almost to a shout sometimes, and his face was not pleasant to see.

Once or twice he held his left hand out, and Norah saw that it was bandaged.

For a minute or two she was badly frightened. Then, watching him, she suddenly came to the conclusion that she had nothing to fear--that he was telling her something he wanted her to know. She listened, trying hard to catch some word in the flood of fluent foreign speech, and twice she thought she made out the name of Ram Das. Then he finished abruptly with almost the one word of Hindustani she knew, since it was one the old hawker had taught her. "SUMJA," ("Do you understand?") he hurled at her.

Norah shook her head.

"No, I don't 'SUMJA,'" she said: but her tone was friendly, and some of the anger melted from the Indian's face, and was succeeded by a quick relief. "Can't you speak English? You know Ram Das--Ram Das?" she repeated, hoping that the name might convey something to him. To her immense relief, the effect was instantaneous.

"Know Ram Das," said the man, struggling for words. "Him--him." He swept the horizon vaguely with his hand.

"I know Ram Das," Norah put in. "Him good man."

The Hindu nodded violently. His face was natural again, and suddenly he smiled at her. "You a meesis?" he asked. "Ram Das say l'il meesis."

"I'm little meesis," Norah said promptly. It was the old man's t.i.tle for her. "Did Ram Das send you?"

"Him send me," said the man, with evident pleasure in finding the word.

He struggled again for English, but finally gave it up, and held out his left hand to her silently.

"Why, you're hurt!" Norah said. "Is that why Ram Das sent you?"

He nodded again, and began to unroll the long strip of cotton stuff round his hand and wrist. It took a long time, and at last he had to go down to the water and bathe the stiffened rag before it would come away. Then he came back to Norah and held it out again--a long, hideous gash right up the wrist, torn and swollen and inflamed.