"And was that all she said?" I asked.

"Who?-Oh! 'Possum," said Jack, rousing himself. "Well-no; let me think--We got chatting of other things-you know a married man's privileged, and can say a lot more to a girl than a single man can. I got talking nonsense about sweethearts, and one thing led to another till at last she said, 'I suppose Mr Wilson's got a sweetheart, Mr Barnes?'"

"And what did you say?" I growled.

"Oh, I told her that you were a holy terror amongst the girls," said Jack. "You'd better take back that tray, Joe, and let us get to work."

I wouldn't take back the tray-but that didn't mend matters, for Jack took it back himself.

I didn't see Mary's reflection in the window again, so I took the window out. I reckoned that she was just a big-hearted, impulsive little thing, as many Australian girls are, and I reckoned that I was a fool for thinking for a moment that she might give me a second thought, except by way of kindness. Why! young Black and half a dozen better men than me were sweet on her, and young Black was to get his father's station and the money-or rather his mother's money, for she held the stuff (she kept it close, too, by all accounts). Young Black was away at the time, and his mother was dead against him about Mary, but that didn't make any difference, as far as I could see. I reckoned that it was only just going to be a hopeless, heart-breaking, stand-far-off-and-worship affair, as far as I was concerned-like my first love affair, that I haven't told you about yet. I was tired of being pitied by good girls. You see, I didn't know women then. If I had known, I think I might have made more than one mess of my life.

Jack rode home to Solong every night. I was staying at a pub some distance out of town, between Solong and Haviland. There were three or four wet days, and we didn't get on with the work. I fought shy of Mary till one day she was hanging out clothes and the line broke. It was the old-style sixpenny clothes-line. The clothes were all down, but it was clean gra.s.s, so it didn't matter much. I looked at Jack.

"Go and help her, you capital Idiot!" he said, and I made the plunge.

"Oh, thank you, Mr Wilson!" said Mary, when I came to help. She had the broken end of the line and was trying to hold some of the clothes off the ground, as if she could pull it an inch with the heavy wet sheets and table-cloths and things on it, or as if it would do any good if she did. But that's the way with women-especially little women-some of 'em would try to pull a store bullock if they got the end of the rope on the right side of the fence. I took the line from Mary, and accidentally touched her soft, plump little hand as I did so: it sent a thrill right through me. She seemed a lot cooler than I was.

Now, in cases like this, especially if you lose your head a bit, you get hold of the loose end of the rope that's hanging from the post with one hand, and the end of the line with the clothes on with the other, and try to pull 'em far enough together to make a knot. And that's about all you do for the present, except look like a fool. Then I took off the post end, spliced the line, took it over the fork, and pulled, while Mary helped me with the prop. I thought Jack might have come and taken the prop from her, but he didn't; he just went on with his work as if nothing was happening inside the horizon.

She'd got the line about two-thirds full of clothes; it was a bit short now, so she had to jump and catch it with one hand and hold it down while she pegged a sheet she'd thrown over. I'd made the plunge now, so I volunteered to help her. I held down the line while she threw the things over and pegged out. As we got near the post and higher I straightened out some ends and pegged myself. Bushmen are handy at most things. We laughed, and now and again Mary would say, "No, that's not the way, Mr Wilson; that's not right; the sheet isn't far enough over; wait till I fix it," etc. I'd a reckless idea once of holding her up while she pegged, and I was glad afterwards that I hadn't made such a fool of myself.

"There's only a few more things in the basket, Miss Brand," I said. "You can't reach-I'll fix 'em up."

She seemed to give a little gasp.

"Oh, those things are not ready yet," she said, "they're not rinsed," and she grabbed the basket and held it away from me. The things looked the same to me as the rest on the line; they looked rinsed enough and blued too. I reckoned that she didn't want me to take the trouble, or thought that I mightn't like to be seen hanging out clothes, and was only doing it out of kindness.

"Oh, it's no trouble," I said; "let me hang 'em out. I like it. I've hung out clothes at home on a windy day," and I made a reach into the basket. But she flushed red, with temper I thought, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the basket away.

"Excuse me, Mr Wilson," she said, "but those things are not ready yet!" and she marched into the wash-house.

"Ah well! you've got a little temper of your own," I thought to myself.

When I told Jack, he said that I'd made another fool of myself. He said I'd both disappointed and offended her. He said that my line was to stand off a bit and be serious and melancholy in the background.

That evening when we'd started home, we stopped some time yarning with a chap we met at the gate; and I happened to look back, and saw Mary hanging out the rest of the things-she thought that we were out of sight. Then I understood why those things weren't ready while we were round.

For the next day or two Mary didn't take the slightest notice of me, and I kept out of her way. Jack said I'd disillusioned her-and hurt her dignity-which was a thousand times worse. He said I'd spoilt the thing altogether. He said that she'd got an idea that I was shy and poetic, and I'd only shown myself the usual sort of Bush-whacker.

I noticed her talking and chatting with other fellows once or twice, and it made me miserable. I got drunk two evenings running, and then, as it appeared afterwards, Mary consulted Jack, and at last she said to him, when we were together: "Do you play draughts, Mr Barnes?"

"No," said Jack.

"Do you, Mr Wilson?" she asked, suddenly turning her big, bright eyes on me, and speaking to me for the first time since last washing-day.

"Yes," I said, "I do a little." Then there was a silence, and I had to say something else.

"Do you play draughts, Miss Brand?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "but I can't get anyone to play with me here of an evening, the men are generally playing cards or reading." Then she said, "It's very dull these long winter evenings when you've got nothing to do. Young Mr Black used to play draughts, but he's away."

I saw Jack winking at me urgently.

"I'll play a game with you, if you like," I said, "but I ain't much of a player."

"Oh, thank you, Mr Wilson! When shall you have an evening to spare?"

We fixed it up for that same evening. We got chummy over the draughts. I had a suspicion even then that it was a put-up job to keep me away from the pub.

Perhaps she found a way of giving a hint to old Black without committing herself. Women have ways-or perhaps Jack did it. Anyway, next day the Boss came round and said to me: "Look here, Joe, you've got no occasion to stay at the pub. Bring along your blankets and camp in one of the spare rooms of the old house. You can have your tucker here."

He was a good sort, was Black the squatter; a squatter of the old school, who'd shared the early hardships with his men, and couldn't see why he should not shake hands and have a smoke and a yarn over old times with any of his old station hands that happened to come along. But he'd married an Englishwoman after the hardships were over, and she'd never got any Australian notions.

Next day I found one of the skillion rooms scrubbed out and a bed fixed up for me. I'm not sure to this day who did it, but I supposed that good-natured old Black had given one of the women a hint. After tea I had a yarn with Mary, sitting on a log of the wood-heap. I don't remember exactly how we both came to be there, or who sat down first. There was about two feet between us. We got very chummy and confidential. She told me about her childhood and her father.

He'd been an old mate of Black's, a younger son of a well-to-do English family (with blue blood in it, I believe), and sent out to Australia with a thousand pounds to make his way, as many younger sons are, with more or less. They think they're hard done by; they blew their thousand pounds in Melbourne or Sydney, and they don't make any more nowadays, for the Roarin' Days have been dead these thirty years. I wish I'd had a thousand pounds to start on!

Mary's mother was the daughter of a German immigrant, who selected up there in the old days. She had a will of her own as far as I could understand, and bossed the home till the day of her death. Mary's father made money, and lost it, and drank-and died. Mary remembered him sitting on the verandah one evening with his hand on her head; and singing a German song (the "Lorelei", I think it was) softly, as if to himself. Next day he stayed in bed, and the children were kept out of the room; and, when he died, the children were adopted round (there was a little money coming from England).

Mary told me all about her girlhood. She went first to live with a sort of cousin in town, in a house where they took in cards on a tray, and then she came to live with Mrs Black, who took a fancy to her at first. I'd had no boyhood to speak of, so I gave her some of my ideas of what the world ought to be, and she seemed interested.

Next day there were sheets on my bed, and I felt pretty c.o.c.ky until I remembered that I'd told her that I had no one to care for me; then I suspected pity again.

But next evening we remembered that both our fathers and mothers were dead, and discovered that we had no friends except Jack and old Black, and things went on very satisfactorily.

And next day there was a little table in my room with a crocheted cover and a looking-gla.s.s.

I noticed the other girls began to act mysterious and giggle when I was round, but Mary didn't seem aware of it.

We got very chummy. Mary wasn't comfortable at Haviland. Old Black was very fond of her and always took her part, but she wanted to be independent. She had a great idea of going to Sydney and getting into the hospital as a nurse. She had friends in Sydney, but she had no money. There was a little money coming to her when she was twenty-one-a few pounds-and she was going to try and get it before that time.

"Look here, Miss Brand," I said, after we'd watched the moon rise. "I'll lend you the money. I've got plenty-more than I know what to do with."

But I saw I'd hurt her. She sat up very straight for a while, looking before her; then she said it was time to go in, and said: "Good-night, Mr Wilson."

I reckoned I'd done it that time; but Mary told me afterwards that she was only hurt because it struck her that what she said about money might have been taken for a hint. She didn't understand me yet, and I didn't know human nature. I didn't say anything to Jack-in fact, about this time I left off telling him about things. He didn't seem hurt; he worked hard and seemed happy.

I really meant what I said to Mary about the money. It was pure good nature. I'd be a happier man now, I think, and richer man perhaps, if I'd never grown any more selfish than I was that night on the wood-heap with Mary. I felt a great sympathy for her-but I got to love her. I went through all the ups and downs of it. One day I was having tea in the kitchen, and Mary and another girl, named Sarah, reached me a clean plate at the same time: I took Sarah's plate because she was first, and Mary seemed very nasty about it, and that gave me great hopes. But all next evening she played draughts with a drover that she'd chummed up with. I pretended to be interested in Sarah's talk, but it didn't seem to work.

Afew days later a Sydney jackeroo visited the station. He had a good pea-rifle, and one afternoon he started to teach Mary to shoot at a target. They seemed to get very chummy. I had a nice time for three or four days, I can tell you. I was worse than a wall-eyed bullock with the pleuro. The other chaps had a shot out of the rifle. Mary called "Mr Wilson" to have a shot, and I made a worse fool of myself by sulking. If it hadn't been a blooming jackeroo I wouldn't have minded so much.

Next evening the jackeroo and one or two other chaps and the girls went out 'possum-shooting. Mary went. I could have gone, but I didn't. I mooched round all the evening like an orphan bandicoot on a burnt ridge, and then I went up to the pub and filled myself with beer, and d.a.m.ned the world, and came home and went to bed. I think that evening was the only time I ever wrote poetry down on a piece of paper. I got so miserable that I enjoyed it.

I felt better next morning, and reckoned I was cured. I ran against Mary accidentally and had to say something.

"How did you enjoy yourself yesterday evening, Miss Brand?" I asked.

"Oh, very well, thank you, Mr Wilson," she said. Then she asked, "How did you enjoy yourself, Mr Wilson?"

I puzzled over that afterwards, but couldn't make anything out of it. Perhaps she only said it for the sake of saying something. But about this time my handkerchiefs and collars disappeared from the room and turned up washed and ironed and laid tidily on my table. I used to keep an eye out, but could never catch anybody near my room. I straightened up, and kept my room a bit tidy, and when my handkerchief got too dirty, and I was ashamed of letting it go to the wash, I'd slip down to the river after dark and wash it out, and dry it next day, and rub it up to look as if it hadn't been washed, and leave it on my table. I felt so full of hope and joy that I worked twice as hard as Jack, till one morning he remarked casually: "I see you've made a new mash, Joe. I saw the half-caste cook tidying up your room this morning and taking your collars and things to the wash-house."

I felt very much off colour all the rest of the day, and I had such a bad night of it that I made up my mind next morning to look the hopelessness square in the face and live the thing down. It was the evening before Anniversary Day. Jack and I had put in a good day's work to get the job finished, and Jack was having a smoke and a yarn with the chaps before he started home. We sat on an old log along by the fence at the back of the house. There was Jimmy Nowlett the bullock-driver, and long Dave Regan the drover, and big Jim Bullock the fencer, and one or two others. Mary and the station girls and one or two visitors were sitting under the old verandah. The jackeroo was there too, so I felt happy. It was the girls who used to bring the chaps hanging round. They were getting up a dance party for Anniversary night. Along in the evening another chap came riding up to the station: he was a big shearer, a dark, handsome fellow, who looked like a gipsy: it was reckoned that there was foreign blood in him. He went by the name of Romany. He was supposed to be shook after Mary too. He had the nastiest temper and the best violin in the district, and the chaps put up with him a lot because they wanted him to play at Bush dances. The moon had risen over Pine Ridge, but it was dusky where we were. We saw Romany loom up, riding in from the gate; he rode round the end of the coach-house and across towards where we were-I suppose he was going to tie up his horse at the fence; but about half-way across the gra.s.s he disappeared. It struck me that there was something peculiar about the way he got down, and I heard a sound like a horse stumbling.

"What the h.e.l.l's Romany trying to do?" said Jimmy Nowlett. "He couldn't have fell off his horse-or else he's drunk."

Acouple of chaps got up and went to see. Then there was that waiting, mysterious silence that comes when something happens in the dark and n.o.body knows what it is. I went over, and the thing dawned on me. I'd stretched a wire clothesline across there during the day, and had forgotten all about it for the moment. Romany had no idea of the line, and, as he rode up, it caught him on a level with his elbows and sc.r.a.ped him off his horse. He was sitting on the gra.s.s, swearing in a surprised voice, and the horse looked surprised too. Romany wasn't hurt, but the sudden shock had spoilt his temper. He wanted to know who'd put up that b.l.o.o.d.y line. He came over and sat on the log. The chaps smoked a while.

"What did you git down so sudden for, Romany?" asked Jim Bullock presently. "Did you hurt yerself on the pommel?"

"Why didn't you ask the horse to go round?" asked Dave Regan.

"I'd like to know who put up that bleeding wire!" growled Romany.

"Well," said Jimmy Nowlett, "if we'd put up a sign to beware of the line you couldn't have seen it in the dark."

"Unless it was a transparency with a candle behind it," said Dave Regan. "But why didn't you get down on one end, Romany, instead of all along? It wouldn't have jolted yer so much."

All this with the Bush drawl, and between the puffs of their pipes. But I didn't take any interest in it. I was brooding over Mary and the jackeroo.

"I've heard of men getting down over their horse's head," said Dave presently, in a reflective sort of way; "in fact I've done it myself-but I never saw a man get off backwards over his horse's rump."

But they saw that Romany was getting nasty, and they wanted him to play the fiddle next night, so they dropped it.

Mary was singing an old song. I always thought she had a sweet voice, and I'd have enjoyed it if that d.a.m.ned jackeroo hadn't been listening too. We listened in silence until she'd finished.

"That gal's got a nice voice," said Jimmy Nowlett.

"Nice voice!" snarled Romany, who'd been waiting for a chance to be nasty. "Why, I've heard a tom-cat sing better."

I moved, and Jack-he was sitting next me-nudged me to keep quiet. The chaps didn't like Romany's talk about 'Possum at all. They were all fond of her: she wasn't a pet or a tomboy, for she wasn't built that way, but they were fond of her in such a way that they didn't like to hear anything said about her. They said nothing for a while, but it meant a lot. Perhaps the single men didn't care to speak for fear that it would be said that they were gone on Mary. But presently Jimmy Nowlett gave a big puff at his pipe and spoke: "I suppose you got bit too in that quarter, Romany?"

"Oh, she tried it on, but it didn't go," said Romany. "I've met her sort before. She's setting her cap at that jackeroo now. Some girls will run after anything with trousers on," and he stood up.

Jack Barnes must have felt what was coming, for he grabbed my arm and whispered, "Sit still, Joe, d.a.m.n you! He's too good for you!" but I was on my feet and facing Romany as if a giant hand had reached down and wrenched me off the log and set me there.

"You're a d.a.m.ned crawler, Romany!" I said.

Little Jimmy Nowlett was between us and the other fellows round us before a blow got home. "Hold on, you d.a.m.ned fools!" they said. "Keep quiet till we get away from the house!" There was a little clear flat down by the river and plenty of light there, so we decided to go down there and have it out.

Now I never was a fighting man; I'd never learnt to use my hands. I scarcely knew how to put them up. Jack often wanted to teach me, but I wouldn't bother about it. He'd say, "You'll get into a fight some day, Joe, or out of one, and shame me;" but I hadn't the patience to learn. He'd wanted me to take lessons at the station after work, but he used to get excited, and I didn't want Mary to see him knocking me about. Before he was married Jack was always getting into fights-he generally tackled a better man and got a hiding; but he didn't seem to care so long as he made a good show-though he used to explain the thing away from a scientific point of view for weeks after. To tell the truth, I had a horror of fighting; I had a horror of being marked about the face; I think I'd sooner stand off and fight a man with revolvers than fight him with fists; and then I think I would say, last thing, "Don't shoot me in the face!" Then again I hated the idea of hitting a man. It seemed brutal to me. I was too sensitive and sentimental, and that was what the matter was. Jack seemed very serious on it as we walked down to the river, and he couldn't help hanging out blue lights.

"Why didn't you let me teach you to use your hands?" he said. "The only chance now is that Romany can't fight after all. If you'd waited a minute I'd have been at him." We were a bit behind the rest, and Jack started giving me points about lefts and rights, and "half-arms", and that sort of thing. "He's left-handed, and that's the worst of it," said Jack. "You must only make as good a show as you can, and one of us will take him on afterwards."

But I just heard him and that was all. It was to be my first fight since I was a boy, but, somehow, I felt cool about it-sort of dulled. If the chaps had known all they would have set me down as a cur. I thought of that, but it didn't make any difference with me then; I knew it was a thing they couldn't understand. I knew I was reckoned pretty soft. But I knew one thing that they didn't know. I knew that it was going to be a fight to a finish, one way or the other. I had more brains and imagination than the rest put together, and I suppose that that was the real cause of most of my trouble. I kept saying to myself, "You'll have to go through with it now, Joe old man! It's the turning-point of your life." If I won the fight, I'd set to work and win Mary; if I lost, I'd leave the district for ever. Aman thinks a lot in a flash sometimes; I used to get excited over little things, because of the very paltriness of them, but I was mostly cool in a crisis-Jack was the reverse. I looked ahead: I wouldn't be able to marry a girl who could look back and remember when her husband was beaten by another man-no matter what sort of brute the other man was.

I never in my life felt so cool about a thing. Jack kept whispering instructions, and showing with his hands, up to the last moment, but it was all lost on me.

Looking back, I think there was a bit of romance about it: Mary singing under the vines to amuse a jackeroo dude, and a coward going down to the river in the moonlight to fight for her.

It was very quiet in the little moonlit flat by the river. We took off our coats and were ready. There was no swearing or barracking. It seemed an understood thing with the men that if I went out first round Jack would fight Romany; and if Jack knocked him out somebody else would fight Jack to square matters. Jim Bullock wouldn't mind obliging for one; he was a mate of Jack's, but he didn't mind who he fought so long as it was for the sake of fair play-or "peace and quietness", as he said. Jim was very good-natured. He backed Romany, and of course Jack backed me.

As far as I could see, all Romany knew about fighting was to jerk one arm up in front of his face and duck his head by way of a feint, and then rush and lunge out. But he had the weight and strength and length of reach, and my first lesson was a very short one. I went down early in the round. But it did me good; the blow and the look I'd seen in Romany's eyes knocked all the sentiment out of me. Jack said nothing-he seemed to regard it as a hopeless job from the first. Next round I tried to remember some things Jack had told me, and made a better show, but I went down in the end.

I felt Jack breathing quick and trembling as he lifted me up.

"How are you, Joe?" he whispered.

"I'm all right," I said.

"It's all right," whispered Jack in a voice as if I was going to be hanged, but it would soon be all over. "He can't use his hands much more than you can-take your time, Joe-try to remember something I told you, for G.o.d's sake!"

When two men fight who don't know how to use their hands, they stand a show of knocking each other about a lot. I got some awful thumps, but mostly on the body. Jimmy Nowlett began to get excited and jump round-he was an excitable little fellow.

"Fight! you--!" he yelled. "Why don't you fight? That ain't fightin'. Fight, and don't try to murder each other. Use your crimson hands or, by G.o.d, I'll chip you! Fight, or I'll blanky well bullock-whip the pair of you;" then his language got awful. They said we went like windmills, and that nearly every one of the blows we made was enough to kill a bullock if it had got home. Jimmy stopped us once, but they held him back.

Presently I went down pretty flat, but the blow was well up on the head and didn't matter much-I had a good thick skull. And I had one good eye yet.

"For G.o.d's sake, hit him!" whispered Jack-he was trembling like a leaf. "Don't mind what I told you. I wish I was fighting him myself! Get a blow home, for G.o.d's sake! Make a good show this round and I'll stop the fight."

That showed how little even Jack, my old mate, understood me.

I had the Bushman up in me now, and wasn't going to be beaten while I could think. I was wonderfully cool, and learning to fight. There's nothing like a fight to teach a man. I was thinking fast, and learning more in three seconds than Jack's sparring could have taught me in three weeks. People think that blows hurt in a fight, but they don't-not till afterwards. I fancy that a fighting man, if he isn't altogether an animal, suffers more mentally than he does physically.

While I was getting my wind I could hear through the moonlight and still air the sound of Mary's voice singing up at the house. I thought hard into the future, even as I fought. The fight only seemed something that was pa.s.sing.

I was on my feet again and at it, and presently I lunged out and felt such a jar in my arm that I thought it was telescoped. I thought I'd put out my wrist and elbow. And Romany was lying on the broad of his back.

I heard Jack draw three breaths of relief in one. He said nothing as he straightened me up, but I could feel his heart beating. He said afterwards that he didn't speak because he thought a word might spoil it.

I went down again, but Jack told me afterwards that he felt I was all right when he lifted me.

Then Romany went down, then we fell together, and the chaps separated us. I got another knock-down blow in, and was beginning to enjoy the novelty of it, when Romany staggered and limped.

"I've done," he said. "I've twisted my ankle." He'd caught his heel against a tuft of gra.s.s.

"Shake hands," yelled Jimmy Nowlett.

I stepped forward, but Romany took his coat and limped to his horse.

"If yer don't shake hands with Wilson, I'll lamb yer!" howled Jimmy; but Jack told him to let the man alone, and Romany got on his horse somehow and rode off.

I saw Jim Bullock stoop and pick up something from the gra.s.s, and heard him swear in surprise. There was some whispering, and presently Jim said: "If I thought that, I'd kill him."

"What is it?" asked Jack.

Jim held up a butcher's knife. It was common for a man to carry a butcher's knife in a sheath fastened to his belt.

"Why did you let your man fight with a butcher's knife in his belt?" asked Jimmy Nowlett.