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Title: All That Swagger (1936)
Author: Miles Franklin
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Title: All That Swagger (1936)
Author: Miles Franklin




* * * * *


TO THE MEMORY OF MY PATERNAL GRANDPARENTS
whose philosophical wit and wisdom and high integrity
are a living legend of the Murrumbidgee.


* * * * *



CHAPTER I


Memory recaptures a song or two echoing wistfully through the generations
of Delacy in the voice of old Fearless Danny. He was wont to rune to
himself as he sat alone, thrust aside by his sons as childish, his eyes
glazed with absence--that retreat of the aged when time has wrung the
colours from the present and left the rose and green only on the distant
fields of youth.

"Oh, moi! Oh, moi!" he would ejaculate, conversing to himself. Rarely was
there an understanding listener. When there was, he would gaze backward
into what long ago had been the future, and belatedly indulge in
nostalgia. He would linger on the picture of his mother taking her
farewell of him, and his father lacking the courage to see young Danny
being picked up by the coach that was to bear him away for ever.

The wild Murrumbidgee sinking into the bunyip hole, and tumbling
therefrom into Delacy's Crossing, would vanish, the Shannon take its
place, graciously traversing its ancient plain by Limerick, the beauteous
city. The road ran by Sarsfield Bridge to old Ennis in County Clare, to
the ruined Abbey where the boys played, and to Clare Castle. The day
would be in May with the whinchats merry in the furze, the larks high in
the air, such a day as the Isle of Destiny knows, a cajoling day, a day
to caress the heart of a youth to water in the presence of a maid, and to
turn a maid's heart to a man; and the era was a hundred years from now,
for young Daniel Brian Robert M. Delacy, born in the year of Waterloo,
was stretching towards eighteen.

His home was on the rise by Ennis that looks north-east to the Slieve
Aughty Mountains, and north-west to the Aran Isles and the Atlantic,
which had expatriated or swallowed entirely so many Clare and Galway
lads. He stood in the road, not that he was at that date given to
meditation, but the ancient legendary of the scene, the acknowledged
presence of the fairies in the glens and raths, was as saturating to his
inner consciousness as the sun to his outer. The sunshine spread a
benediction full away to Kilrush and Liscannor Bay, to Kilkee and
Killaloe, to lilting Kildare and hilarious Kilkenny and Tipperary, to
Ennistymon and Crusheen, and Rathdrum and Carrickmore, to Enniskillen,
and Trillick and Letterkenny and Ballysodare, and Tara, and Tralee, and
Mallow, and Bantry, and Bandon. The darling loves and doves of names that
swell in the heart of Erin's inheritor, until he is thrappled! A presence
grown palpable through centuries of articulate myth and poesy had
nurtured young Delacy's spirit. He loved the open view of the thatched
white cabins on the treeless hillsides with the sociable roads across
them. Roads excited him, packed as they were with history, glamorous with
fable, with chivalry and romance and liberation in the way they ran
through the winds and rains of all the seasons of all the generations, a
foe to stagnation, a hostage to adventure.

He had a sense of deprivation that none of the green land was his. The
only soil he could dig his spade into was the paltry acreage of his
father's college, where there were prior rights of a playground for the
scholars, and a plot for the goat.

There was a legend that the Delacys had crossed the English Channel with
the Conqueror, and the Irish Sea with Strongbow. Whatever, the Delacys
had followed clerical pursuits and had never been rooted in the soil as
were the families of the reverberating cognomens and Firbolgian descent,
whose bones and brains had fertilized the soil and culture of Eire long
before culture or agriculture began in Albion. So Gaelic lore and
archaeological research would have it; but perhaps only pride, put on its
mettle by presumptuous usurpers, could reconstruct so gratifying a
prospect from the records of the savage and bloody procedure of all
factions in past days. At any rate, among the whole boiling of Delacys
was never a Kevin, a Patrick, nor an Aloysius, which showed they had lost
their chances in epochs later than the Tuatha de Danaan and Milesian.

Danny's father was principal of a preparatory college for boys. His
curriculum was limited, but he transmitted with his canings something
invaluable to his third son in his after life in the Antipodes--character
unflinching and resourceful. In the dislocation which accompanied
Continental military glory and the local agitation against oppression,
Schoolmaster Delacy, who was classified with the petty gentry loyal to
the Union, could not provide careers for three sons. One in due time
would step into his father's shoes, but it is debilitating to camp for an
old man's shoes, and no one knows what became of Robert Delacy. No doubt
he and the school petered out together. The second son, William, was
engulfed by India. It is known that he rose--or sank--to be a major in
the army there, but nothing more.

Danny's hunger for land was a crying for the moon in so far as his father
could help him. There was, however, an opening to appeal to the lad.
Poverty following the Napoleonic wars had driven thousands across the
Atlantic. Now the Colony of New South Wales was greedy for settlers.
Tales of rosy prospects for free men penetrated to Ennis, though Mrs
Delacy suppressed any talk of this.

Danny went often to the Cooleys, of Cooley Hall, over the hill, a name
pretentious for the farm, but the Cooleys remembered that they were of
one of the ancient and powerful clans. Mrs Cooley was a Francallew. The
patronymic, as found in an antique missal, had been written Franc-Alleu,
and signified freefield. The first Franc-Alleu had also been a follower
of the Bastard of Normandy. Thus the Cooleys and Francallews, as the
Delacys, had claims to a gentility characterized by loss of the Gaelic
tongue and the acceptance of the decree that Irish nationality was
synonymous with treason.

Danny enjoyed walking around with old Cooley, looking at the turnips,
discussing the bull in the meadow or the pigs in the sty, and was always
ready to help for love of work on the land. Old Cooley thought him an
obliging gossoon and sometimes lent him a nag to appear in the hunts. The
acuter Honoria had lately opened her husband's eves.

"Helping you, is it! Have ye seen his eyes light on our Johanna?" Pretty
Johanna was mistress of the dairy, and could turn the heel of a sock with
the best.

"The devil mend him! I'll break the young spalpeen's back."*

[* The aim is merely to indicate the rhythm and poetic and philosophic
idiom of' the speech of the Irish characters, not to make a pedantic
exhibition of Irish pronunciation word by word. Those acquainted with the
deeply-placed voices, and rich unorthodox vowel sounds which distinguish
much of Irish-English, despite disclaimers by thaw who adopt the haw-haw,
flat-vowelled Public School English, are independent of phonetic
reproduction, and to read dialect is a wearying and frequently an
impossible exercise to all but those who specialize in linguistics.]

"Father O'Fogarty shall say a special word to her on her duty."

"A Prodestan', and him with nothing to his back--will have to go for a
soldier belike."

"He talks more of going to the Antipodes."

"The sooner the better! Kevin O'Gorman with a phroperty near as good as
me own, waiting for her to say the word."

"An old widow-man with big children, not to touch the heart of a young
girl."

"I'll touch her back with a stout ashplant if she shows anny nonsense."

Thereafter Danny was frigidly met, and found it difficult to see Johanna
alone. She confessed to undergoing penances. "Sure, 'twas worth it," she
said, tossing her head.

This made Danny feel like a king. He, too, had been taken to task. The
unpleasantness suffered by love's young dreamers on opposite sides of a
sectarian fence was theirs, though the elders had kindly dispositions and
were among the enlightened and less bigoted. There was, too, an endearing
story about the Delacys. In bad past days when the land had been
parcelled among the usurpers, a Delacy had accepted in name only and
permitted the rightful inheritor to occupy. In the recent agitation for
Catholic Emancipation, Schoolmaster Delacy had allowed the use of his
class-room. These things were not forgotten. Also, Danny's emigration was
becoming practical, and both sets of parents looked upon this as a way
out of the danger. The Cooleys welcomed it with relief, the Delacys with
sorrow, but also as the lesser of two evils.

Danny was taking his head with a precocity and enterprise natural to one
who was as Danny was, who did what Danny did when he became known by half
a dozen nicknames, all tributes to character and courage. On the
intoxicating day of his recollection he was scanning the landscape for a
handkerchief on a gorse bush at the back of Cooley's barn. On that day
old Cooley went to market, and Danny had something to read to his
Johanna.

Scarcely waiting to take precautions against discovery, he pulled a paper
from his shirt and cried: "Johanna, Mavourneen! Listen to this. I've got
it all laid out in me moind."

Johanna had rather he noted her dainty shoes and trim kirtle. What
satisfaction was there in virtue without opportunity to win its spurs?
Kevin O'Gorman--nasty widow-man of the advanced age of thirty-five--was
over-ready to test her, but she resisted his attempts with loathing,
while she doubted that Danny could be provoked out of his respect for
women by any tactics possible to an inviolable maiden.

Danny liked to read. He had more facility than Johanna, the victim of an
inferior governess. "Out there, sure there are new developments at every
turning of the moon. Listen, will you?--"


"The short space of little more than four decades has converted the
horrid and trackless wilderness--the transient hunting field of some
migratory tribe of naked and unidead savages--into the busy mart of
civilized and enlightened intercourse where there is yearly exported to
the mother-country produce of many kinds, and where the tastes, the
pursuits, the comforts, and even elegancies of English Society, are
valued and enjoyed to a far more substantial extent than in many of the
large towns of Great Britain itself."


"It reads like a grand story," commented Johanna.

"'Tis actual fact. There are towns like Limerick, and fine establishments
like your aunt's already there."

"Can that be true?" exclaimed Johanna, her eyes dancing with excitement.
"I'm wanting to hear of the elegancies."

"True, why true! You can depend on the printed word as if 'twas from the
book of Ballymote. Listen to their aims:"


"To induce respectable and virtuous families among the industrious ranks
of society at home, to transfer their capital and labour from an arena
where the whirl of competition stands formidably in the way of successful
exertion, to a field where not competency alone, but certain fortune can
hardly fail to reward the efforts of careful, persevering and honourable
toil."


"Certain fortune! A man would be driving his carriage, with high-steppers
like the Thomonds', before you could turn round."

"Ah, %mould take too long!" said Johanna, dubiously. "Me Aunt Della had a
letter that came from Shamus O'Tooley, who wint out after the rebellion,
and it was full of terrible hardships, and convicts, and nothing to eat.
I saw it meself. 'Tis kept in the old book."

"Och! Johanna, I have trouble getting things into your head, and then
they come out again. The rebellion was a generation ago, and sure, they
were rebels and convicts."

"They were noble heroes foighting for freedom."

"Maybe they were, too, but they were treated as felons and transported.
'Tis all dealt with here. It says that Sydney Cove was a repository of
national crime, a vast territorial jail inhabited only by felons and
their overseers. 'Even the Governors themselves scarcely exceeded, either
in dignity or importance, anything but superintendents of houses of
correction.' Sure, what could that generate but a superfluity of
naughtiness? That was at the beginning, but since 1820, 'a tide of
respectable immigration has been diluting that deplorable state of
affairs at the furthest extremity of the globe'."

"It sounds desperate to be so far away."

"Lo, and behold ye! 'Twould be the centre of the universe if you were
there with me, Johanna," said Danny, boldly. "And what put such a notion
in ye'r skull?" demanded Johanna with mounting interest.

"'Tis natural, Johanna, and there is no escape from Nature."

"And what do ye mean by me being at the centre of the universe out
there? Me father and mother would never emigrate to the furthest ends of
the globe, and them with this fine place."

"Then are you going to remain unmarried? That would be difficult for
the prettiest girl in County Clare."

"It would that same, with O'Gorman never giving me a moment's peace.
Sure, his eye would be on me now, but for his going to market a pig."

"Arrah! O'Gorman, an old grandfather like a gorilla, with grown-up
children."

"He could give his wife everything, Danny Delacy."

"He could never give her the advinture of going over the seas to a
splendid new country. I could soon give you a carriage and pair like the
Marchioness of Sligo. They give a free man 130 or 150 acres, and a few
acres to each child, and you can get Government men assigned to labour
for you."

"It doesn't sound rational."

"At anny rate, I'm off the day I'm eighteen. Will you wait for me?"

"How long, Danny-boy?"

"Maybe two years. Time is consumed with the voyage."

"I could never hold out two years against O'Gorman's importunities, and
me feyther all for getting me set up with such a property. I'm a full
year and a trifle more than ye, Danny-boy. 'Tis only a dream."

"Everything is a dream till it is made come true. Come make this true
with me, Johanna."

He stood before her, not yet eighteen, and the meagre stature of
five-feet-seven-and-a-half-inches wherewith to attack the wilds of the
Antipodes in bravura days of convicts and aborigines, before the
explorers had finished their surveys. Neither had he the features of the
classic heroes; a small pointed nose, a stubborn mouth, now full of ugly
teeth, and later to be ambushed in an unmolested beard. But Johanna doted
on his eyes, as blue as the heavens on the days when the salmon wait to
go up; his hair with the raven sheen and as soft as floss silk; his
forehead broad and full; his voice as deep and brave as a stag hound's.

As the Isle of Destiny animated the early Milesians with the expectation
of refuge and plenty, so did the Continent of Australia inspire young
Danny. His hunger for land and need for action banished indecision. He
dreamed of wide acres like those of County Clare, running away for square
miles, all his own.

"Moi, oh, moi! What a prospect," he would exclaim.

The district was combed for families with members in New South Wales,
and, no matter what the nature of the information, it fanned the
enthusiasm of Danny Delacy. The schoolmaster aided the lad, as far as
small means allowed, to escape from restricting circumstances to spacious
opportunities baited with adventure. The eyes of Mrs Delacy reflected her
bereavement. Industrious and cheerful, his ready wit with never a barb in
it, arid cowardice and lies unknown to him, Danny was his mother's bright
spot in life, her baby. Now he was to go. She would be old and deserted.
Her eyes reflected her bereavement.

Otherwise, the situation was eased for neighbours who feared a mixed
marriage. Danny confessed that he had asked Johanna to come out to him.
Danny not quite eighteen! His parents hid the smiles. The difficulties of
communication guaranteed the defeat of young love. The widow Cassidy once
had had a paper with a mark beside the title which meant that her
daughter was living, but not another line in all the years. It would take
more than a year to receive a reply to a letter. A little tact until
Danny departed was all that was necessary.

Mrs Cooley was likewise sensible, and also sympathetic. Cooley had been
foisted on her as a safe match when her imagination hungered for
something more knightly. She was a steady woman and true to her faith;
she was firmly for establishing Johanna but, "Be aisy," she would advise.
"Danny Delacy is a nice boy, for all he's a heretic. He's as fearless as
a game cock."

"It's a bantam he is."

"And with the lively word for young and old, and all his foine
book-learning and conversation from his feyther; it is not to be wondered
that Johanna is a bit touched; but sure, he's but halffledged--not a
pluck of beard on him yet. Whin he's gone, and no sign for a full year,
then O'Gorman can be tender, and it's snugly settled she'll be before the
second year."

"O'Gorman may be a little coorse in the horn beside young Danny, but he
has a tidy phropery, and with twinty years more on her, 'tis glad she'll
be that she was saved from a come-day-go-day Prodestan'."

"Maybe, and maybe not," said Honoria, with recollections of herself at
Johanna's age. "At anny rate, let her have a rich good-bye to him. Sure,
she was crying all night."

"Women can turn the taps on for annything."

"All the same, O'Gorman should not be too pressing for a while. She has
been teasing to go stay by me sister Kate Thomond. She need not come back
till Danny has gone for good and all."

Cooley left the matter to her. She was his second wife. He had never been
able finally to get the better of either; women were unfathomable. New
dresses were necessary for the visit to Mrs Thomond, whose husband throve
in the law in Limerick, but Honoria pointed out that they would do for
the wedding later. Honoria was plotting for Johanna's escape from the
widow-man. There would be promising sprigs of the law about the Thomonds.
Johanna could seize her chance to mate in accordance with youthful taste
as well as in het own religion.

She and Danny had their final meeting in the coomb, reached by the stile
out of the barley paddock behind the Cooley Hall barn.

"I could never hold out for two years, Danny-boy," sobbed Johanna. "As
soon as ye'r back is turned, they'll put on the clampers. Besides, it's
out of sight, out of mind with min. The minute ye don't see me, ye'll
forget me."

"Be all the pipers in Paradise!" shouted Danny, his eyes flashing blue
flame. "We can put the come-hither on it in a twinkling. Come with me,
Johanna, and see to it that I do not change me moind, nor yours neither."

Johanna baulked momentarily. She accused Danny of his youth, which he
said would quickly improve. There was the dread obstruction of creed,
like black magic, but Danny was inclined to pooh-pooh all religions as
superstition. In this issue his lissom young form and fair skin
outweighed the swarthy hairy O'Gorman, with a breath which made kisses a
persecution; and not for nothing was Johanna given a nose like an
Emperor's, and black eyes to go with it, and a mouth as beautiful as
those that the Greeks sculptured in marble, and as firmly set.

She lacked Danny's love of the soil and open spaces. Her cravings were
for town graces as found with her aunt, Kate Thomond; and the O'Gorman
farm had fewer amenities and uglier furniture than Cooley Hall. She could
see what was ahead of her in County Clare. She did not share Danny's
visions, but was it not in print that the people of Sydney Cove "enjoyed
to a far more substantial extent than in many of the large towns of Great
Britain itself, the tastes, the pursuits, the comforts and even the
elegancies of English Society"? Johanna adored elegancies. Better the
hope of elegancies at the "furthest extremity of the globe" than the
certainty of inelegancies on O'Gorman's farm. She swallowed the camel of
faith in the delusion of brides that husbands can be reformed. The
susceptible Danny, who could not meet her eyes without flushing and
collapsing into self-consciousness, would be easily managed when she had
him all alone. His conversion would reflect glory on her.

That pretty day they sat side by side upon the stile overlooking the
ripening barley, their troth plighted, and considering, with the
high-heartedness of youth and inexperience, the stratagems necessary.

She packed her box that night and put in her best bits, collected against
marriage. Her mother wondered at the weight of it at the time. She was to
travel with a Sister from the convent.

"Just supposing that ye'r Danny never comes back?"

"Then I'll be a nun, but I'll never marry O'Gorman. Don't say I have not
warned ye."

It was certainly better that she should have her chance at Kate Thomond's
fine parties and not be plagued by the hairy O'Gorman for the present.

The wrench of departure remained unrecorded by Danny except in the final
perspective of memory. When years had taken the strength--though never
the courage--from Daniel's spirit, the old eyes would rest upon that
poignant drama. He could be seen with all his worldly goods in a box on
his shoulder, walking away from his home to take the coach where the lane
met the highway to Limerick. He had few goods: a tool or two, a new suit,
a second pair of boots, several pairs of socks, some shirts, a Bible, and
a book of poems. All the currency that his parents could collect was in
his belt, but there was a fortune in his sound stomach and high heart.

"Sure, me father kissed me--the only time he ever did, that I remember.
He handed me his own frieze over-coat, and went into his schoolroom and
shut the door...Me mother sat on a milestone and flung her apron over her
head and buried her head in her arms. That's how she remained as I looked
back--all the way to the turn of the road. That's how I remember her
always...All those years, and I never saw her again...dead a lifetime
ago...but in me moind I can see her sitting there still...The moind! The
moind!"

On that summer day, when the heavens matched his eyes in sparkle and
colour, he glanced blithely toward the coomb, with the stile at its feet,
where he and Johanna had sealed their plan of action with sacred
promises. He took the parting from his family lightly--going to Johanna
as he was, and full of impatience to be accumulating that fortune which
would bring him back to them or them to him--but it deepened in his
memory as the road lengthened. Later he found a song to voice his
emotions, and this he would rune over and over, forgetting his
listener--if any--his fading eyes on the sweet distance of old County
Clare:


I'm sitting on the stile, Mary, where we sat side by side,
On a bright May morning long ago, when first you were my bride.
The corn was springing fresh and green and the lark sang loud and high,
And the red was on your lip, Mary, and the lovelight in your eye.


The young man's consciousness was instinct with the comprehended soul of
Ireland, a tangible entity wrought by countless generations to a
nourishing cloak for the ego. Stored for sustenance later was the
spiritual grace of concrete places, that supra mundane presence which
gave reality to the musical names, the long-trodden ways of Eire. His
heart and eyes were ahead on adventure. Away, away, from his native
environment so rich in mystic lore, to a land purged of history since
before Etruscan Ides or Babylonian orgies were calendared, his spirit of
an independence to further the artificing of a new culture and of legends
distinctive of places whose names at that date were scarcely taken down
from the aborigines.

There was wild dismay at Cooley Hall when it was discovered that Johanna
would never more return to superintend her dairy or help the younger
children with their lessons. One Cooley blamed the other. O'Gorman blamed
them both, having held his horses for two years for this reluctant girl.
With the aid of a cousin--herself bent on eloping with an English
officer--Johanna had made her escape forty-eight hours before it was
suspected. A letter came some days later stating that she was off to
Belfast to be married to Danny Delacy and emigrate to the Antipodes.

"Marry a Prodestant--to travel without marriage and be roonedand in that
scoundrelly northern town!" Mrs Cooley keened affrightingly and set out
to attack Mrs Delacy. Both women said things that they could neither
forgive nor forget.

There came in time a letter from young Delacy to old Cooley reporting
that the absconders were married and on board the good ship _Jane_ bound
for Sydney Cove. Honoria Cooley preserved the document as the certificate
of her daughter's rectitude, but old Cooley never felt that it was a real
marriage. His bitter denunciation followed his Johanna--once his delight.
He disowned her as part of his flesh, and prayed that she would rue the
vile sorrow and shame she had put on him and her mother.

Johanna accepted excommunication cheerfully. Maledictions could not
travel so far as she and Danny were going, and all would be repealed when
Danny was brought into the true fold. She was full of excitement in
sailing with the personal effects she had collected, ostensibly as the
bride of the odious O'Gorman; and had she not her own rights of being?
The Cooleys claimed descent from the princes of Ith or Heremon. Were
there not legends of Queen Maeve and the great cattle spoil of Cooley?

Moyna Thomond, Johanna's accomplice, a generous and romantic girl, was
distressed by Johanna's going so far away, and insisted upon giving as
many of her own things as the two girls could smuggle out of the house.
Among these was a cedar work-box with drawers, set on a tripod pedestal,
which had to be lashed on to the deck arid tended all the way to Sydney
Cove. There was also a little chair with carved back and curved legs with
claw-and-ball fret, a pair of china ornaments and a set of three
Waterford lustres. The cousins parted with promises of eternal fealty and
the hope of reunion in Sydney. Every possibility dangles before the nose
of adventurous youth.

They never met again. Nor did old Cooley ever rescind his curses. That,
perhaps, is why the Delacys know so little of their ancestry in Ireland.
Mrs Daniel Brian Robert M. Delacy rarely mentioned her family, except
abstractly, even to her sons and daughters. Danny lost account of his
because his mother died shortly after his departure, and he disregarded
letter-writing. Also, His Majesty's mails were not so cheap, swift and
dependable a hundred years ago as to-day.

A later Mrs Delacy wrote home to the parish priest, who could find only
an aunt on the Cooley side, and her memory was gone. A hundred years from
the date of Danny's embarkation, a great-grandson of his name alighted
out of the sky near Ennis. He was hospitably received by the Bishop of
Killaloe, and entertained at St Flannahan's College, but not a trace of a
Cooley or a Delacy could he find. Nevertheless, in the indestructible
archives of imagination, Mrs Delacy still sits upon the milestone with
her head bowed upon her arms. By the further aid of an old song, Danny
and his Johanna remain for ever in the sunlight on the stile, he young
and brave, and listening to the words she now for ever speaks, the
lovelight in her eyes; the red upon her cheeks.



CHAPTER II


The _Jane_, 374 tons, entered Port Jackson, "the beautiful land-locked
marine lake", and anchored in Sydney Cove, seven miles from the Heads,
six months from the day she had sailed from Southampton. The arrival of
the Delacys was chronicled in the Australian of the date:--"Mr George
Moore, of Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal; Mr and Mrs Daniel Delacy, of Ennis,
Co. Clare, as well as 20 steerage passengers, principally mechanics and
their families. All the passengers spoke in high terms of the gentlemanly
treatment afforded them by Capt. Jas. Riddell."

Mr George Moore of Ballyshannon had a promising estate in the Colony at
Bandalong and at Quebarra on the Morumbidgee. He had been out for some
years, driven from Ireland by the death of his wife, and had returned to
Dublin only to place his son at Trinity College. On the _Jane_ he had shown
a warm interest in the immigrant bride of nineteen-and-a-bit with her
groom of eighteen, and his kindness and generosity had mitigated some of
the hardships of the voyage for Johanna. To conserve his currency Danny
had taken a steerage passage for himself and put his wife in the between
accommodation. Mr Moore had had them both removed to berths near his own
so that his young countrywoman could have the company of the ladies in
the cuddy. From his ample stores he had coaxed her appetite and exerted
himself for her comfort in other ways as well as by cheering and
sustaining her during the trying months of their passage. He also offered
Danny the position of overseer, and invited Johanna to take up her
residence as lady-housekeeper at his station. For the moment Danny had
other ideas.

Mr Moore was an esteemed patron of Petty's grand new hotel for the gentry
on Church Hill, and, on landing, took the young pair to a select boarding
establishment near by, which the proprietor had "the distinguished honour
to announce is recommended by ladies of the first respectability, that
his dinners are got up in the first style with change of soups daily and
mock turtle three times a week". This gentleman also pointed out that his
hostelry had a fine view of Port Jackson and Darling Harbour, and that
his clients could hear the strains of the military band from the Fort
near at hand.

Those elegancies which Johanna had expected, were, as elsewhere, for the
privileged. She saw little of them at her boarding establishment, where
the cark of funds running low and the discomfort of approaching
motherhood depressed her. She was not at that date susceptible to the
swagger of the military bucks, nor was she concerned with the lady, who
desired, for a consideration, to undertake "the preservation of the
complexion from the burning pernicious influence of the solar beams of
the Antipodes". She was delighted with orange blossoms, water-melons,
guavas, and pomegranates. Grapes and peaches were to her taste, but the
clouds of flies and mosquitoes and the heat distressed her. A
"brick-fielder" frightened and prostrated her. Danny demanded her
enthusiasm for the lively harbour with a forest of masts like a deciduous
wood, and shouted in her ear that there were twenty-two whalers at sea,
in addition to all those in port, and that their capacity was from 70 to
700 barrels.

"Moi! Think of that wealth. Sure, a boat with 500 barrels of sperm oil
put in the same day as ourselves because ten of the crew refused duty.
They've been a year away in the Antarctic."

It was a blow to Danny to learn that land grants had ceased in
'thirty-one. The information imparted to Johanna in the coomb had been
out of date. There were no special prizes for a young man because he was
free and honest. He had to acquire by toil. Without a trade or any
special influence there was a stiff prospect ahead of the little pair in
the Colony, thrusting beyond its garde-major days, but still hampered by
bedraggled swaddling clothes of convictism.

Danny was out every hour of the day seeking an opening. Johanna was left
much to herself. Mr Moore had too much business demanding attention to
pay her any but a short call. A lady--especially one in her "delicate"
state of health--did not walk abroad alone when the quarterly muster of
ticket-of-leavers was proceeding at the post office, when prisoners were
marched about in gangs under guard, when misdemeanants were sent aboard
the hulks as a respite from severer punishment, or were sentenced to days
on the treadmill. Danny would burst in to declare that the cattle market
had excellent beasts, but that he saw a rubbishing lot of ewe-necked
horses. "Och, the field for breeding horses that's here--the uses for
them!" Or he would tell of the cricket match for £50 a side.

Johanna read the newspapers and learnt that bread was 4 lb., 7d.; bacon,
6d. lb.; beef, 3d.; butter, 1/2; cheese, 4d. to 8d.; and candles, 6½d.
Salted hides were 2d. per lb.; horns, 10/- per 100; guinea fowls, 6/6 per
pair, and turkeys, 5/- each.

Danny was determined to own land, but how was he to clear and work it
without capital, and in competition with established and favoured men who
could command all the Government labour they needed? He had not arrived
early enough. The big fellows, with parents to provide capital and
influence, frequently dishonestly exercised in official circles, had
already pegged their claims and were squatting on them west, north, and
south, to the full extent of the Nineteen Counties.

Danny said he would be doomed if he had travelled thirteen thousand miles
for land, then to sit down like a hen in a town as a servant to any man.
At length, when funds ran out, he consented to go up country with Mr
Moore until he could set-up on his own land. That she was to be with Mr
Moore was to Johanna the only factor to temper the strangeness and
uncongeniality of her new environment. Had Mr Moore been situated near
Sydney, she could have been comparatively happy, but what elegancies or
ease could there be in the untamed bush from which came bloodcurdling
tales of bushrangers and aborigines.

The size and height of the trees frightened her. "Sure, they'd make
gallows posts big enough for the devil to collect his own," she cried,
and withdrew her eyes from those standing stark and dead early on the
route; and she never forgot the gibbeted form she saw along the way.

The trees inspired Danny. "They're giants, bedad! From the top of them
you could slip into heaven itself, me brave Johanna."

"There's nothing that would be called grass at home--nothing that affords
a full bite."

"But if it provides a full belly, it is the same thing."

"At anny rate the whole world is a forest. There is ne'er a meadow at
all," said Johanna, disconsolately.

"They're for me to make," maintained the undefeatable Daniel.

"Och! Live horse till ye get grass!" murmured Johanna.

They travelled in two drays, with only a few yoke of oxen in each
vehicle, and progress was retarded by the necessity of double-banking at
stiff pinches. They had assigned men to attend them, men glad to be going
to Mr Moore, who had a good name.

The Goulburn Plains were already held by families, which, in some
instances, hold them still with prestige and comfort. Lake George was
gone, likewise Gounderu. Limestone Plains was in the hands of first
families, there to remain, in imitation of the English squirearchy, until
dispossessed by an imperative democracy in favour of an ideally modelled
city.

They reached Bandalong, one of the farthest-out stations, not far from
Mount Bowning, which a year later was declared the official limit for
settlement. The holding was large and watered by the Bandalong, a short
tributary of the Morumbidgee. Mount Bowning's round blue head was a
sentinel from every direction.

For Johanna's sake Danny was relieved to anchor, but he was emphatic
"It's only till I can foind meself."

Johanna's child did not live long, but it was only a girl, and Johanna
had a reverence for producing males that was descended from a racial era
when an adulteress, with sons, could wear a bolder face than an honest
wife with nothing but daughters.

"The poor little thing would have been a help in manny ways," observed
Danny, having in mind that family labour with which men of various
designations made their way on the land.

Danny pegged away with Mr Moore, with little adventure but that of a
strange environment. Johanna was weak and fretful. This fact and the
unwelcome attentions of Walter Moore prevented Danny from going with
Major Mitchell in 1835. Lack of capital kept him from joining the
overlanders who rushed along the Major's Line in the years following,
years during which the squatters extended their occupancy of the land
from the Morumbidgee to the Darling, and changed the social and economic
composition of the Colony. The sheep owners within the Nineteen Counties
authorized for land settlement, had, under existing policies, been able
to secure most of the grazing areas. Later arrivals coveted holdings
beyond the jurisdiction of the area delimited for the maintaining of law
and order, and soon spread like a bursting dam in disregard of an Act
declaring squatters to be unauthorized trespassers on the Crown. The mere
name did not wound the hardy and mostly unscrupulous adventurers, there
beyond the application of law, in millions of acres of inland grass
country to be had for the seizing. The Governor preserved Governmental
prestige by sanctioning what was too strong to suppress, and licensed the
squatters to trespass by the payment of a small yearly fee, or rental,
for vast stations. "Squatter" acquired an antipodean connotation
approximating that of manorial lord as the graziers entrenched themselves
in parody of English County Families. Conditions have ensured that they
remain a parody to this day.

There were no coolies, Zulus, nor abducted negroes here. In the serf
class were only British prisoners, and transportation was soon to cease.
Thenceforward for several generations, Australian men were to establish
their homes, if not by the sweat of their brows, then in saddle galls and
the physical hardihood of an existence which demanded the pluck to ride
colts that had run ungentled until mature. Women had had to give birth to
their families in the same way since Eve, but in Australia, the highest
type and breed of white woman had to add to that fundamental travail the
secondary labour, which in more populous lands is delegated to the
disinherited and servile classes, or to the backward races.

Though he was hobbled by domesticity plus lack of capital, Danny never
settled as an underling at Bandalong. He disliked his relation to the
convicts as overseer, and abhorred theirs to the lash. Though of
invulnerable integrity himself, no man was more merciful to
transgressors. Decency abode in him as melody in music and without any
sense of superiority. There was little of either the bully or the servant
in him; he was ineradicably a free man, an individualist. His father was
a Trinity College man; Danny himself at least knew of the classics when
only "betters" could read or write. Old Cooley, too, had the status of a
fox-hunting squire, and Johanna had not forsaken her country and
forsworn her faith to sink in the social scale.

Each time that Danny reached the plateau that lay between Bandalong and
another holding of Mr Moore's on the Murrumbidgee--as it was later to be
spelt--he was bewitched by the spectacle of the heavens prinked with a
necklace of ranges beautiful as opals and sapphires. There it lay, land
in plenty beyond County Murray. No one had penetrated its gorges since
Hume and Hovell had skirted them in reaching the Doomut ten years
earlier. This domain was guarded by natural ramparts and dismissed as
inaccessible while there was ample open country. The high blue ranges
were the wall of a fountain province beyond which the Colony sloped down
and away to droughty plains of heat and mirage, already held in lively
cattle runs from the Lachlan to the Murray, and from whence came news of
desperate encounters with inhabitants who resisted invasion, or who
executed summary justice upon men who upheld white prestige in
desecrating black women. The Out Back had no allure for Danny. He babbled
of the cool endearing mountains in a way that filled Johanna with
apprehension. On the other hand, Walter Moore, a waster and libertine,
laid her under continual siege so that she longed for some way of escape.
Mr Moore voiced the opinion, volubly upheld by Walter, that native dogs
would destroy all young or weak stock in winter in the gorges. In summer,
the aborigines, who migrated there for their initiation ceremonies and to
feast on the boogongs,* would spear or frighten away what animals escaped
the dogs.

[* Large edible moths.]

"Maybe we had better stay where we are well-off," sighed Johanna.

"Well-off, by damn!" was all that Danny said.

Finally Johanna had to complain of Walter, and she begged his father to
assist Danny to a place of his own. Mr Moore had seen dubious incidents,
and regretfully acceded to Johanna's plea. He had for the handsome 'young
woman the affection of a parent, and would miss her, as the society of
any women, and especially of ladies, was highly prized. The
Commissioner--the all-powerful of the period--was Mr Moore's friend, and
through him Moore obtained a sliver of land on the Morurnbidgee,
adjoining the Moore property, Quebarra.

Some time earlier it had been a grant to a convict who had saved an
official's life. The man, given his freedom, had married and settled
there. For the birth of his child he took his wife to Mrs Fullwood, of
Heulong, eight miles away across the river. He brought wife and child
home on Mrs Fullwood's horse at dusk when the river was a little high, so
that he had to give all his energy to guiding the horse and keeping him
on his feet. When the horse rushed up the bank past him out of the water,
the saddle was empty. The bodies were found days after and buried near
by. The man abandoned his land and disappeared. It remained unoccupied
because of a legend that the ghost of the woman and child wailed in the
crossing when the water was shoulder-high at the dark of the moon.

Danny "arrahed" at ghosts. They raised no fear in his valiant flesh, and
the river frontage secured the gorges behind it. Currency being scarce,
Mr Moore paid Delacy in live stock, which were allowed to run on the
skirts at Bandalong. Now he advanced labourers to fell timber and put up
a hut.

Johanna regretted her comfortable quarters and lady's life, with assigned
labour for all purposes, including a nurse for the baby, and prepared to
accompany Danny into the wilderness once more. She moved to Quebarra to
be safe from young Moore and nearer to Danny while he was erecting their
shelter.

The new place was called Bewuck by the blacks for the hauls of cod they
caught in the fish hole, almost in front of the homestead. It was a
reservoir from which the water issued in a slight fall and ran wide on a
stony bed that made one of the few safe crossings in a day's ride. While
at Quebarra, Johanna was told of the ghosts by the stockman's wile, and
that the bottomless waterhole was the home of the bunyip, most mysterious
of all the fantastic Australian animals.

Johanna soon moved to her home, with her belongings on a slide. The early
settler's heart sank as she struggled down the declivity to the rough
spot without a road, and far from neighbours. Terror invaded her when she
saw the wild river rushing past so near her door. She clasped her toddler
against the mesmeric danger. The river had a long, harsh name and was
lined with uncanny trees, strangely called oaks, and clothed in green
hair that was tormented by the breeze to the melancholy cadence of the
banshee.

The new home was a wooden shell. The cracks let in the sun. Johanna found
no bar on the door, and when Danny went out of her sight in the gathering
dusk, she wailed that the bunyip would devour her and the child.

"You've been listening to some nullity with an empty skull so that
stories rattle in it," said Danny, with scorn. "The bunyip will be all to
the good to scare the child from the river. No wan has ever heard of the
bunyip away from the water. Sure, I wish I could capture the beast. I'd
be clearing up a mystery that disturbs the zoologists and gaining renown
for meself."

The brown and the black, and even the deadly tiger snakes were thick
about the river banks--an added torture to an exile from the sacred Isle
of Inisfail from which the blessed St 'Patrick himself had banished the
reptiles. Danny did not minimize the danger from snakes, though he could
break their backs by cracking them like a whip, a performance which made
Johanna tremble for his safety. He was more than occupied as the founder
of one of the first families on the Morumbidgee, and was as full of
satisfaction as though his frontage had put him among the landed gentry
of Ireland. His gunyah of shrinking slabs, covered with bark, elated him;
but the drips spoiled Johanna's bed curtains and made it necessary to
hide her few linen treasures, and thus defeated the elegancy dear to her
heart.

Day or night there was no relief from the Morumbidgee, so lone and dark
and far, with the voice of a ravening wind--thousands of miles of it
until it met an unknown sea. Johanna felt that here indeed was the
furthest extremity of the globe from the placid Shannon in its park-like
plain. The contrast between this stream and that golden mirror in the
westering sun, when the gentry's salmon waited head to tail to go up, was
so gruelling that her father's curse seemed to have overtaken her. Here,
at length, she felt the punishment of her name being tabu in her family,
and that never again would she see Cooley Hall in old County Clare.



CHAPTER III


Guarding the illusive land were throngs of giants--the stateliest trees
on the globe. Delacy was like an ant in the aisles of box trees and
towering river gums, but he attacked them as an army, grunting with
effort, sweat dripping from him. His slight form grew as wiry as steel;
his hands were corneous and scarred with the work of felling and
grubbing.

"Mother of God!" little Johanna cried, as she saw the columns toppling.
She was sick with terror lest her world of Danny and the child and the
animals should be crushed there by the lorn river, with none to come to
the rescue. It resembled the destruction of a universe, as in fact it
was. A world of unexcelled, unrealized wealth had to go up in smoke that
a small patch might be cleared to grow bread, and a hut have safety.
Felled, the timber encumbered more ground than standing, until, with the
help of men supplied through Mr Moore, Danny rolled the smaller logs into
fences, and burned the remainder. He was out before daylight. He could
scarcely desist for meals. Johanna brought him food and drink at
intervals. The burning-off kept him until midnight, his pillars of fire
licking the starry heavens low above his gorges.

In the evening Johanna would put her child to sleep, and help by
gathering up the sticks. This work relieved her loneliness, intensified
by the moaning of the river oaks, and the noise of the queer grey birds
that threw laughter back and forth for miles, until dark and after. Their
lusty guffawing, upon the smallest provocation or upon none, had a
brow-heating effect, and she was mortally afraid that the bunyip would
rear his undescribed form from the fish hole, or that the ghosts would
cry in the crossing. These fears festered; she dared not confess them to
Danny. He had none of the cruelty of the cowardly, but he had an
inability to estimate the torments of the timid, which is sometimes a
part of fearlessness. He had the heritage of his Irish temperament, which
had enabled his exiled compatriots to turn desperate plights to brilliant
victories, though Danny himself was free from swashbuckling taint. He
despised belligerence. He disregarded firearms. His warrior prowess was
thus freed to assault the continent of Australia, and he did not grizzle
because he was unarmed and single-handed.

Though not at Bewuck until November, he was ready for the autumn
ploughing. One of Moore's men, named Hannon, and trusted by both Delacys,
was left to guard the new home. Danny borrowed the stockman's daughter,
aged eight, from Quebarra for company for Johanna. The arms were also
left with her--a broken cutlass and a flint-lock musket. Should the fire
die out, a greasy rag, ignited by firing it from the gun, could be
applied to punk. Danny with his sledge and the second man set out to
forage for seed and provisions at Bandalong, thirty miles distant. Drays
were scarce in the district of some fifty square miles, but two belonged
to Danny's protector.

Danny's courage was as inexhaustible as his energy. Johanna therefore
merited extra consideration, as her fortitude was cold and stricken. Her
unborn child depressed her and made her a prisoner in the gorges with the
river's banshee trees and bunyip hole. Endurance horn of necessity kept
her from breaking down during those breaking-in days. Danny scarcely
realized her heroism in remaining there. She did not realize it herself.
Danny did not recognize himself as heroic, and had no wish to spare from
the combat to worship other heroes. Martyrs he would have overlooked as
hypochondriacs or malingerers.

"Now, you're all set, Johanna, Mavourneen," he observed, when ready to
depart. "Hannon will look after you like a father, and what could hurt
you here at all, annyway? The bushrangers have died out, and would nor
come for so little. If they do, let them have it. It's the fighting and
defence that makes all the trouble."

"But it's a queer man who does not defind himself."

"The trouble with defence is that the few it saves are nothing to the
danger it brings upon innocent people by provocation. And now tell me,
you'll be all right, me brave Johanna, who has come over the seas with
me."

"Would there be anny good in telling ye annything else? Get on with ye,
and waste no time in returning."

"You may be a little lonesome now, but this is to be a greater place than
Cooley Hall, with a finer town than old Ennis on top of us."

"Ye'll be too old to enjoy that whin it comes."

"Och! You must look to the future. 'Tis only the beasts and nullities
have no foresight."

Johanna suffered keenly during his absence. Hannon slept at a distance
from the house. When the jackasses ceased, the dark fitted over the
tree-tops like a night-cap, and the boobooks hooted, or the native dogs
howled, or the little booraby bears wailed like tortured children. It was
the dark of the moon, and the river more than girth deep, so Johanna was
sure it was a ghost that screamed there. She went to bed at dusk,
gathering Florry--the visitor--and her own child with her, and shuddering
at every sound. Sometimes she wept, but empires are not wrought, nor won,
without the tears of the weak, aye, and of the strong. "Tears wash the
eye", as the young Delacys later wrote in their copy-books; and Johanna
had fine, flashing eyes, independent of spectacles, to the end.

When the sunlight left the gorge she would climb with the children and an
old dog up the track where the sun still shone across the plateau, and
there watch for Danny's return.

"He can't be here yet, Misthress," Hannon would say.

"'Tis an excursion away from the dungeons of me castle," Johanna would
reply.

At length a party approached among the more open timber. Mr Moore had
lent Danny a dray and four bullocks. There was the horse slide and a
third horse farther away. Danny hurried forward.

"Sure, Mr Moore is a white man if ever there was wan. I've got a power of
potatoes and pumpkins and all manner of seed wheat and barley, and
suckers from fruit trees, and flowers for a garden in me spare time, me
brave Johanna."

Spare time among settlers was a rare elegancy.

"And Johanna, will you believe me, they have a township laid out by
Moore's. There's to be a store and a lock-up; and churches and schools
and a post office will come. Sure, the teamsters congregate there from
three directions, and there's a power of traffic already. People are
buying blocks for farms."

The stir of Danny's returns compensated for his absences. His booty was
sometimes inutile but always entertaining. This time he had beads--as for
the Island trade--but there were also two Dutch toys for the children, a
roll of dowlas, twine and sail needles, raisins, writing paper, powder
for ink, and a keg of tobacco. Sperm candles were a contribution to
Johanna's elegancies.

"I'd rather a roll of flannel for your underclothes than so much dowlas."

"Sure, I'll be warm working in dowlas. I have wan kag of chisel-pointed
lath nails and another of green paint. The paint is sour own. A place can
be made a palace with a dab of paint and a lick of plaster."

The recital progressed before the horny log fire while Johanna and Florry
prepared the meal.

"But now, Johanna, can you guess what more I've got?"

"A newspaper!"

"Och, I have a dozen of them!"

"A letter from Ennis?"

"Not this time, but 'twill come."

"Mr Moore has lent ye some hooks."

"I have wan, but there will be no time to read, so I resisted more."

"Did ye bring me anny burrds, Danny-boy?"

"Och!" It was a shout of triumph. "As fine a pair of turkeys as ever you
saw, and thim 16/- the pair in Sydney this mortal minute; and a little
cock and two hins."

"I'll go see they are not smothered," exclaimed Johanna. "Leave them be.
You haven't guessed what more it is I've brought."

"I'd like it to be a cask for a tub."

"I've wan big enough for a bath, and a little wan to make pails beside
it; but what more have I?"

"Ye'r so full of wonders, Danny-boy, that ye might have the Brown Bull of
Cooley himself hid along the track."

Danny loosed a shout of triumph. "You've almost said it. I have the next
thing to the Bull of Cooley or the Shan Van Voght captured. I've got a
fine lump of a colt--the brown entire."

Johanna strove to be impressed, though the poultry were more to her
understanding than a crippled horse.

The colt had been the hope of Mr Moore's stud. Eyes of men, dulled by the
"System", had brightened at sight of the animal who combined all the
virtues and graces. Then, about a year since, the groom had been
galloping him in sight of the household, when he put his foot in a hole,
and crack!--with a sound like a pistol, the off fore fetlock was clean
snapped. The jockey was killed, and put a gloomy seal on the fate of the
Singer, son of Skeleton.

"'Tis a pity not to give him a chance of his life," said Danny, who loved
a good horse for his beauty and usefulness, though he had as great a
contempt for horse-racing and all that went with it, as he had for army
swagger.

His idea of a stringy-bark stocking for the fetlock was carried out by a
surgeon guest. Danny slung the animal and tended him constantly for
weeks. That was his way, with no purpose other than absorption in the
enterprise for its own sake. The horse had grown dangerous after Danny's
departure, but was so calm when handled by his old friend again that
Moore said: "You've earned that horse, Delacy."

Thus Johanna saw the animal in the twilight. He was in poor condition and
unkempt after his journey on three legs, but his eyes were wide and wise,
and he had the stance of an emperor. "Is he really such a grand beast and
all?"

Doubt impelled speech from Dunn, the dour man holding the halter.

"Sure, ye'r honour, there's not his aquil in the Colony this day, beggin'
ye'r pardon for spakin'. He's own son of Skeleton and by a mare of the
purest blood herself. And Skeleton himself was owned by the Marquis of
Sligo himself at first; and he sowld him to none but a prince, him wid
the name of Ester Hazy. It sounds loike a faymale and all, but 'tis a
man, as Oi've been towld by thim that's seen him at the great race
meetings.

"Sure, he was the bist horse of the year whin Lord Sligo purchased him,
and the bist horse of the year in owld Oireland is the bist horse in the
world, beggin' ye'r honour's pardon, for mintioning it to wan from the
owld place herself. By the Calendars can be seen Skeleton's manny
successful performances. He was considered in ivery way superior to
Arrogance, who won the King's Plate at Doncaster in as short a toime as
iver before or since. But Skeleton was superior. And Master Robert was
decidedly the best of his year before him. Master Robert was the dad of
Skeleton and was got by Buffer. His dam was Spinster by Shuttle, and his
great-dam by Sir Robert, great-granddam by Bordeaux, great-great-granddam
was Sperenza, own sister of Saltrom, by Eclipse."

Johanna retired. Refinement decreed that ladies should feign ignorance of
the presence and purpose of stud animals.

This information had been read to Dunn from the newspapers by a lettered
fellow-lag, and Dunn had committed it to memory as a poem. "Sure," he
added, "Skeleton as a two-year-old ran at the Curragh of Kildare and came
second to horses he afterwards beat to smithereens."

"By damn!" said Delacy. "We're in the presence of royalty. Me fortune's
made entirely. What is more, Dunn, I go by the dam. This fellow's dam was
a thoroughbred, and a perfect lady to boot. The nullities think anny old
dam will do. Observation shows that the mother is equally
impoortant--more so, to judge by human beings."

There were now free immigrants arriving under the new policy of
assistance with funds derived from the sale of Crown Lands, but the towns
and the big men had the pick of these, and Delacy, short of capital, was
dependent upon ex-ticket-of-leavers, who sometimes imposed upon him
because of their grey hairs. His personal industry continued unabated. He
robbed from the nights by working in the light of log fires in the barn,
called the kitchen, and used as the men's hut. There took place the
grinding of wheat in the hand mill, the making of halters, hobbles and
ropes of greenhide, and the construction of big saddle-bags employed for
transport over an ordinary saddle. The useful pack-saddle had not then
come into use.

Hannon and Danny ploughed with two steady bullocks lent by Mr Moore, and
a pair of milkers' calves. It was part of the day's work to pursue the
bolting team around the paddock, Hannon trying to "whoa" them while Danny
clung to the precious borrowed plough. Palings were split for Johanna's
garden. Land was set aside for fruit trees and vegetables. The jackasses
followed plough or spade for the fat blue-and-ivory grannie grubs that
popped from the gleaming furrows. Danny found them entertaining
companions and mingled his laughter with theirs. The brown colt became a
member of the family and helped to shape its fortunes--all in the trend
of the times.

Johanna had been startled on the morning after his arrival when she saw
her husband sitting on the ground with the entire's foot in his arms as
he refitted the splint.

"The Saints preserve us! He could batter ye to pieces."

"Arrah, he's as gentle as a lamb. You've only to treat him like a
Christian."

Dunn bad the congenial task of groom, and many a feed of sprouting barley
was filched for the horse.

Mrs Wade left Florry at Bewuck to help Johanna, and later came herself.
Mrs Fullwood was cut off by the river's winter level. The infant settler
was one of few arrivals during the cold months. The Delacys were remote
from roads. A man or two came, having heard of the colt, and there was a
messenger from one of the big stations towards The Plains to borrow salt
and a bag of flour.

There were floods of marsupial visitors, some of whose species have since
been extirpated. One of the men had to be on duty all night to save the
crops. Gentle furry things fell into simple traps or to Rover and his
colleagues. Their flesh fed the poultry and pigs, and scores of their
skins were pegged out to dry. Pelts of kangaroos and wallaroos were
marketable. Kangaroos were also eaten. Cattle were too precious to be
made into beef at the beginning.

Spring came and ripened towards summer and Christmas. The waters of the
Murrumbidgee subsided, and Delacy's tenancy was contested by the
Fullwoods and Butlers. One morning Heulong cattle supplanted the Bewuck
herd right to the fence of the cow paddock, and not far away were Butler
cattle from Glenties. The little, man was to be squeezed out by the
bigger squatters on either side.

Danny summoned his dogs and rode to contest this. In charge of the
Heulong stock was a man named O'Neill, on a good horse. He had his
instructions, and rode belligerently at Danny, pulling a pistol from his
holster. Fullwood and Butler were cronies of the Commissioner, Danny was
a penniless immigrant wedging his way on to the river.

The pistol was so enraging to him that he rode straight at it, ordering
O'Neill to drop it, "before I skelp the eyes out of your head, you
scoundrel, doing the dirty work of some cowardly crawler, who's bought
you for a plug of tobacco and a taggeen of rum."

O'Neill shouted. "Take back ye'r durrty words, ye little shrivelled
bastard Prodestant heretic! Get off of ye'r horse and meet me man to
man."

"Impty the charge from your pistol and I will," said Danny, "Though it's
thim that's above you I should be meeting."

O'Neill, surprised, obediently discharged his pistol and replaced it in
the holster. He had been a bruiser and smiled to think how he would
dispose of Delacy and get the reward from Butler and Fullwood. The men
dismounted, tied up their horses and took off their coats. Butler's man,
who had been in the offing to report, now rode up. Butler himself halted
at a distance behind the trees, and there were Danny's two assigned men
from Mr Moore.

None of the Delacys had the physique of boxers. They were as slight as
reeds, with delicate hands. Danny's only chance was to rush his opponent.
O'Neill waited for him, parried him easily, and with one blow brought the
blood from Danny's nose; a second closed one of his eyes, a third, on the
point of the jaw, laid him out. It was over in a minute. Butler came from
ambush with contemptuous mien. Danny's men gloated to see one of their
own fraternity as capable as O'Neill. They despised Danny, insignificant
and unable to shake a fist in self-defence.

"Pour a drop of water on him and take him home to his wife," ordered
Butler, and rode away with his man. The victor mounted his horse and
drove the Heulong cattle towards Bewuck homestead. Danny lay winded for
some time, then he sat up, went to the river, and soused his head in the
clear cold water. His men hung about currishly, without contesting the
encroachments of O'Neill. Charles Fullwood, who had watched from across
the river, rode out of sight well satisfied.

O'Neill had not punished Delacy too heavily. But for the closed eye and a
slight dizziness he was quickly himself. He made no remark to his men,
but mounted his horse, and with his long heavy stockwhip in hand, rode
towards O'Neill.

"You've beaten me at that noble art," he said mildly. "I met you because
otherwise I would have been open to the insinuation of cowardice, but I
fear no man in heaven or hell, and I'm no man's servant but me own. Me
brave gladiator with the pistol and fists, acting for another, who's too
craven to represent himself, now it's for the second round. The first was
to your pattern, the second is to me own. Your horse is better than mine,
and you have a whip the same, and I hereby give notice that I'll skelp
you off me premises. Arrah! Begin!"

O'Neill took up the duel. Delacy was on him with a yell, getting the
first stroke at the horse's flank and sending him rearing and plunging.
O'Neill had as little chance when agility was demanded as Delacy when it
was weight. The little man got in two cuts for the big man's one.
O'Neill's shoulders had not so stung since he had been on the triangle.
As Delacy gained the ascendancy, he ordered his men to round-up the
trespassing cattle, and with dogs barking and biting, they were driven
into the river, to the consternation of Butler and Fullwood.

Danny had earned the men's respect. He gave instructions as to where the
cattle were to be pastured, and rode home.

He explained his eye to Johanna as the result of fly bite, then
prevalent, took a meal and rode away to Mr Moore, who used his influence
with the Commissioner for Crown Lands. Delacy was allowed to add to his
holding land to which those already settled wanted the right without
payment. Seeing that he had a protector, Butler and Fullwood desisted
from open hostilities. They feared they had gone too far in setting a lag
to attack a freeman.

The tale spread from the Heulong and Glenties men to the stockmen of
Quebarra, and returned to Johanna from Florry's mother. Mrs Fullwood was
perhaps the only one who did not know of the encounter and she did not
withdraw her neighbourliness from Johanna. Gossip was that Fullwood
discarded O'Neill for exceeding his duty in carrying the issue to a
physical fight.

"Time will test the whole pack of them--which are min and which are
crawlers!" grunted Danny.

The next stir was the approach of blacks. A man from Glenties reported to
Quebarra that Bewuck was their objective. The fish hole was their
feasting and camping ground. Two tame aborigines came to herald the tribe
and to inform Danny that he was on their territory.

"God help us! What's to become of me and the children," exclaimed
Johanna, terrified.

"Sure, we have taken their ground," said Danny. "But these have never
hurt a hair of the settlers front here to The Plains. I'll go meet them
like a Christian and see what can be done."

One of the Moore bullocks had developed lumpy-jaw and had been left to
Danny for disposal, so he rode to meet the dispossessed with the
oppressed servitor as a peace offering. One of the envoys was with him,
and introduced him and explained the bullock. It was accepted as a
princely gift. The unarmed Danny was received as a brother, and guffawed
in concert with the men. When he got on his horse, one of the envoys
brought a girl piccaninny and signified that she was to be taken on the
pommel. Danny was elated, but Johanna received the child with mingled
feelings.

"They'll be after ye with spears, taking ye for art abductor." Her elder
child, now three, was terrified of the girl's dark skin and asked would
she eat the baby. The Australian was not alarmed but full of curiosity
about the white babies and their clothes.

"Dayvil if ever I met pleasanter people, smiling from ear to ear, they
were so pleased with Bally. It wrung me heart, the poor old fellow
walking along with me so friendly and intelligent, but he is only a beast
after all. The child reminds me of a wild turkey, but as you see, not wan
bit uneasy."

"Murra me, that ever I was born and came roaming to the wilds! They've
given the child to ye for fosterage, and that's why she is so easy."

"Be the powers! That would be an honour to you, me brave Johanna."

She saw the adventure. "If it wouldn't bring hordes of murdering savages
upon us. In anny case I must put a shimmy on her, not to let her be a
shame before me and a bedivilmint to the min."

Late that night shadows stole between Johanna and the moon on her tiny
window. Danny sprang forth and called on the prowlers to halt. They were
petrified by his booming tones. He lit a candle and invited the visitors
to investigate the fate of the piccaninny. They were impressed to see her
already in white man's garb in a bed beside the cot of the toddler, from
whom she refused to part.

"That one sit down longa white pfella--all same as white pfella," they
said. The child's account must have been satisfactory for she was left
where she was--adopted. Only Danny tasted the roasted boogongs brought as
a present, which, he recorded, reminded him of dried plums.

Her people camped at the bunyip hole, on the other side of the river,
which gave some safety from the mangy curs. Otherwise, as Danny pointed
out, they were far less destructive than a company of whites would have
been. "And me having taken the heart of their ground! Sure, they're the
most generous and forgiving Christians," he exclaimed. "They make a
contrast to old Butler and Fullwood, trying to batter me up."

Peace was aided by abundance of cod and bream. One or two cod weighed
more than a hundred pounds each. Danny strutted among the bucks with the
enjoyment of a boy, and they taught him how to use for fish-bait the big
casuarina grubs without puncturing them, lest they leak away in a milky
fluid. One of the men had been with Major Mitchell, and came to the home.
He was interested in the colt's wooden stocking and called him
nullah-mundoey--wooden leg or boot. Johanna was amused by the half-tamed
gins, and set them to wash for her in return for a garment or two.

At the end of a fortnight they moved farther south to the mountains that
beckoned Danny as the Lorelei, and where there remained undisturbed by
whites a hundred or more square miles teeming with fish, waterfowl,
turkeys, marsupials, emus, snakes, lizards, boogongs and other food. In
the retreats near Numba Nanga the aborigines held their ceremonies safe
from intrusion.

The little girl made no attempt to leave with them. "'Tis romantic,
Johanna. She is left with us like an ancient chief's daughter to rear up
in civilization."

They were not clever enough to extract her name. As a gesture to Johanna,
Danny christened her Maeve, after the chieftainess who had had such an
inordinate desire to possess the Brown Bull of Cooley. The child was
lovable and willing, and Johanna's first native-born servant, though in
Danny's commonwealth she ranked as a daughter of the house.

Delacy, as the Colony at large, was completely the grazier and little the
farmer. He could never ascend from his gorges to the higher land of
Quebarra or Glenties without exalted emotion. He would gaze towards the
Australian Alps and collaterals, extending for eighty or a hundred miles
around the translucent horizon, and feel as a poet drinking from the
fountain of inspiration. There lay a land to be wrought to his heart's
desire. With this attitude of the visionary was interwoven the need for
energetic action. It the rare moments when he sat with Johanna before
retiring he talked of going up the Murrumbidgee with his surplus stock
and settling in a valley that the blacks called Burrabinga.

"Utterly inaccessible," Johanna would say with failing heart.

"Wasn't Australia inaccessible till Cook found it, and America out of
bounds till the Puritan Fathers settled it? No place inaccessible if you
have the moind to go there."

What Johanna really felt was that the mountains were all too accessible
to Danny.

"Sure, we must look ahead. 'Tis only the beasts and nullities have no
foresight. I'll need territory for me sons."

"And thim not born yet! Counting chickens before they are hatched."

"You'll have more luck with time," said Danny cheerfully. "I'll be too
late again if I don't look cut. There's Urquhart at Keebah these five
years, and him building a fine house by Government min, near as good as
Moore's."

Danny had already been in the coveted territory in pursuit of bushrangers
that had stuck up Moore's stables. He had also helped a late explorer to
follow the Hume-Hovell line to the Murray; when, according to Johanna, he
had better have been minding his own business. But what is the business
of an adventurous dreamer but to penetrate the forest and traverse the
untrodden plain and establish outposts.

"It would be snore sinse to wait till there is more population," Johanna
would say.

She could not understand his urge to go first, his exaltation in reaching
beyond roads and fences. "Someone must first make the road, me brave
Johanna," he would chant. "Have you never considered that every road was
no road wanst? 'Tis amazing to consider the min away back in the
immensity of time who went first--even in old Ireland."

"But there's no call for ye--a man with childre--to be that wan. There's
reason in all things, and there's little in rushing ahead to the backward
places to be lost and to starve."

After the second harvest there was no restraining him. He had his holding
ring-harked and fenced in paddocks near to the house, and a relatively
large portion under cultivation. He had a house and garden and a
sprouting orchard; he was overstocked, and Heulong and Glenties harried
him whenever possible without coming into the open.

Hannon, blacksmith by trade, carpenter by natural gift, was a treasure.
That he should ever have been a lag was, Danny said, a reflection on the
"System". Danny had no hesitation in leaving him in charge of the place
and of Johanna. Johanna had confidence in Hannon, but she hated to be
left at Bewuck. Maeve, fat and sonsy, was merry company and helpful.
Wade, with a wife and children, was still at Quebarra, only nine miles
distant, so Delacy felt that the country was thickly populated. He would
not be commendable to common sense, the crown of which was profit if he
confessed that there was a compulsion on hint to push farther out, to do,
to be, to put something into life and country, without envy of those who
might pillage fortunes in his tracks. And without such as Delacy whence
would conic wealth for harvesting by the sane self-seekers? Why should
not he himself seek gain? But it is in a man's stars whether he is a
giver or a getter, and the two are separate as marble and mud.

Johanna became resigned as the enterprise took shape. Danny's eyes had
the light that had shone in them seven years before, when he talked of
emigrating.



CHAPTER IV


It was a wide morning in the New Year, with the summer braver than ever
it is where the Shannon flows, when Delacy started farther out with fifty
head of mixed horned cattle and a dozen horses. With him was the dour
Dunn, a carpenter of sorts, who could build a hut. They had four horses
loaded with provisions and gear, and the old musket and ammunition, with
which to supplement their larder.

"Come with me, Johanna, up to the top. You can wish me luck."

From the clay of her advent, Maeve could be trusted to keep her foster
sisters from harm, so Johanna walked beside Danny, who led the mare with
the elder child astride her, to the crest of the ascent.

"Ah, me brave Johanna, look at that!" he exclaimed, his eyes enlarging
and darkening with emotion. "With that before me I could lepp over the
moon."

"It was the owld grey mare that was waiting till me back was turned to
lepp into me lettuce plot," said Johanna, whose heart and body were
heavy.

The cattle lowed questioningly at this disturbance of their habits. The
dogs--brave heelers and intrepid kangaroo chasers--yelped and whined and
rolled on their backs in impatience to be gone. Danny took the pipe from
his mouth to kiss his family good-bye. This weapon did not look so big
with a beard around it. His beard at twenty-five was sleek and fine, and
had the goatee contour of the whiskers of the great Earl of Cork, to
whose portrait, by Paul Van Somers, Danny bore a resemblance.

"If you get lonesome, shut the house and away to Mrs Wade. You and the
children are more important than all the country."

He mounted and took off his hat and looked back, while the mare pranced
and spluttered to overtake her company.

"The woild blacks up there maybe will eat ye," called Johanna.

"Why put such a calumny on quiet people," he laughed, and rode into the
boundless day with the ancient enchantment upon it.

Johanna took her child's hand and watched the path against snakes. Their
despatch with a stringy-bark sucker with a knob remained an ordeal to
her. Maeve was her mainstay in this. The flicker to be seen in the dark
people's eyes lit in hers at the sport, and she had to be trained to
forgo such rich food.

Danny travelled with a paean in his heart, his eyes towards the ramparts
that swept southwards to Brisbane Plains--the Monaro of to-day. The
dazzling clarified atmosphere imposed no border on distance but eternity,
and had a liberating effect. Nearer lay Limestone Plains, where to-day is
the parliamentary city, conceived and planned in a spate of democratic
idealism.

The tourist, succeeding the traveller, who early followed the explorer,
may look across that view to-day, and see, still undefaced by man, the
haunting beauty of the ranges wearing the ages down tenaciously. He can
choose for himself where across them was the way of Daniel Brian Robert
M. Delacy. Delacy's Gap and Delacy's Peaks sentinel the distance, though
the old name is wearing faint with the passing of living memory, and new
names are being substituted in compliment to petty officials. Where Danny
raised his first hut may be known by the abrupt gorge, like the cleft
keep of an ancient fortress, through which the river winds. The spot was
familiar to the blacks as Burrabinga, or the jump, where a giant once
leaped across with thunder and lightning in his spears. The homestead, an
agglomeration of the years and the generations of Delacy, was for long
one of the best known in the southern district.

A stockman going towards Ginninginninderra crossed Danny's track at noon
with the news that the tribes of Monaro anti those from lower down the
Murrumbidgee had been mustering for a week. They had arrived lean and
mangy from Riverina, but several weeks' feasting, topped off with
boogongs, had put a gloss on their hides and filled them with virility,
which in all tongues is synonymous with fight. A battle was expected.

"Be the poipers, 'twill be an exhilarating spectacle," exclaimed Delacy.

The cattle, who could sense the approach of aborigines two or three days
distant, had to be driven in a northerly direction from the smoke
signals. Two days pressed travelling brought them to Keebah, where there
was a good crossing. Delacy was welcomed by Urquhart and his wife, two
young settlers with three infants. Urquhart was Danny's age, and his wife
five years younger.

The house was the farthest-out convict-built house in its direction. The
third generation of Urquharts used to exhibit the staples in the
cellar--to which delinquents had been chained--as the patent of their own
gentility, until the Federal authorities shore their outer runs from the
home paddocks like the belly from a fleece lest the inhabitants should
pollute the watershed of the new city, and thus dislodged a number of
early settlers and endowed them with bitter views on Government
resumption of land.

At the end of a pleasant visit, Delacy pushed on for another twenty
miles, where the horses and cattle drew together baulking on the edge of
the precipices which guarded his valley.

"Sure, ye'r honour, 'tis impassable," said Dunn.

"Impassable, by damn!" shouted Danny. "I have the intintion of breeding
horses that could manipulate a steeple. This mare can be the pioneer.
I'll go first. Rouse them up to follow."

With an "arrah" or two, the long-suffering brood mare was urged forward,
and nervously sought the safest place to set her hooves, where later her
progeny romped with the assurance of goats. The man on her back forced
his flesh to the dictates of his mind, and horseflesh had to conform.
Down she went, snorting, sliding, sitting, scraping the hide off her
hocks, and with Dunn compelling the packed animals pinch by pinch in her
wake. The dogs heeled the cattle and horses between Dunn and their leader
and they came to the foot of the descent without loss.


The cattle settled for the night. Snow was falling in defiance of the
calendar and had purged the air of the disturbing aborigines. The men
made fires for warmth and to scare the dingoes. The dogs drew attention
to an object which Danny found to be a native boy of ten or twelve years
in the ashes of a dead fire. He was in a pitiable condition: the front of
his torso was deeply burned: he made no movement.

Delacy carried the suffering creature to his camp and wrapped him in his
own blanket. The charred body was softened with grease, protected from
the weather, and had a few drops of rum forced down its throat. Later
Danny tried to feed his patient on a morsel of bandicoot, taken from the
dogs and roasted, but he could not swallow.

Next day Danny anti Dunn had to carry the boy in a blanket. He lay
motionless and on the brink of death during the difficult transit. The
dogs worked among the stock and at dusk the men rigged a canvas shelter.

"Sure, 'twould be aisier for ye'rself and him, ye'r honour, if you
finished him now," said Dunn. "I've seen them shoot down manny a fine
buck on the north coast whin I was serving rue turrn. They do be saying
that they're not human, but only animals."

"What haythen promulgated that idea? Am I a murderer to choose between
the colour of a skin? I show aquil respect to humanity whether it is
black, white or yellow, bond or free."

He wrapped his invalid against frost-bite, while Dunn rode around the
cattle and returned to report that a couple of blacks were spearing a
heifer.

"And you to be letting them," yelled Danny, seizing Dunn's nag.

Later it was well-known from the Yackandandah to Yass that Daniel Delacy
had no fear of anything--a surer protection than the old musket.

He galloped up to the aggressors--if that were the right term--dismounted
and made signs of friendliness in the manner of Governor Davey's
proclamation, and he bellowed--simply bellowed. It was said that in
middle life he could sit on his verandas and converse with stockmen miles
out on the run, so powerful his lungs, so resonant his voice, produced in
the deep-chested Irish way, which is rarely muted by self-consciousness.
He tried to convey that he gave the speared beast, but that the warriors
were to touch no others. The fervour of his utterance, his blue eyes
glinting conspicuously in the tan, impressed them. They made signs of
peace. Danny rode around his cattle all night, but there were no further
depredations.

On the day following, other blacks appeared, among them some who had
feasted on the lumpy-jawed beast at Bewuck. Danny gathered from the
pantomime that the story of the fosterage of Maeve was being told. They
traced the burned boy to Danny's camp--possibly coming to bury him--and
were impressed by seeing him alive and cherished. Danny had established
himself as a superman, a big pfella chief, a popular corroboree theme. He
had not embroiled himself by defence.

The boy's name was Doogoolook. He was left with Danny, and as soon as the
beast was devoured, the tribe moved towards the black rock of prehistoric
ages which still guards their borah rings.

Danny was safe to "tail" his cattle so that they would home in the
valleys. He and Dunn made a hut of logs with a lean-to called a
"skilling" and a roof of stringy-bark.

"A prodigious country, Dunn, to provide a roof for the skinning of it
from the trees. A fine thing too to be killing a few trees in the
process."

For weeks, the eyes alone showed that Danny's patient lived. Danny did
not flag in greasing him, and fed him on skilligalee procured from the
blood of wild animals. He talked to him in loud and cheerful tones, but
no response came from the emaciated half-cooked frame. A bitch, brought
to supply successors to casualties from snake-bite or kangaroo maulings,
kept the sores as clean as anything science could devise, and one day
when Danny was eating his own meal of duck, his charge reached for a
discarded bone.

"Be the poipers! We shall have ye as strong as the Bull of Cooley or the
_cervus giganticus_ before long."

Dunn was unable to endure the stench of the fat on the creature in the
blanket, but Danny's ardour for results rendered him superior to bad
smells. He contributed a shirt as bandages for the sores, and a pair of
trousers cut off at the knees. The remnants of moleskin made a comforting
breastplate. The boy began to walk. His limbs were sound.

"Why does he never make a sound?" Danny would demand. "Maybe he's dumb,
ye'r honour."

Danny thereupon yelled behind the child but he gave no sign of hearing.
"There's deaf and dumb whites, and sure, this is a black wan. Doesn't
that show that he is human and aquil with us? How shall we teach him
anything at all?" After pondering Danny decided, "I'll have to keep him
as a pet. He'll be an astonishment to me wife."

The cattle settled in the valleys contiguous to the hut. Danny warred
against the trees with ring-barking--the new aid to destruction--added to
fire. The weeks disappeared like quicksilver. Only two callers penetrated
to the fastnesses--a man who helped to hump provisions from Keebah, and
an adventurer from Limestone Plains. Danny had had but one chance of
sending a message to Johanna. The heavy frosts of May brought him to a
sense of the calendar. One day he brought the mare back on her haunches
with a Nell. "Be the poipers, the youngster must have arrived, and me not
to have remembered!"

He could not be sure to a few weeks in the months, nor a day or so in the
week, where he was. He returned to the hut as if pursued. "Give me a bit
to eat. I'm off to Bewuck. There's important business I should have been
there a month past for. You give an eye to the stock," he ordered Dunn.
"If you want rations, you can make out to Keebah."

Doogoolook ran after his master like a dog, so he had to stop and catch a
second horse and furnish it with an improvised bridle and a piece of bag
for a saddle, with greenhide loops for stirrups.

"Maybe I'll be back within a week, arid maybe not till ve see me," Delacy
shouted, his horses on the run.

His intention of riding night and day had to be abandoned because of
Doogoolook, whose body was not all healed. They reached Bewuck three days
later, the dogs announcing their arrival. Johanna took her second child,
little Della, and sat on the verandah facing the river.

Hannon came forward for the horses through a gate painted green, and
Doogoolook, at a sign, went with him. Kathleen Moyna was so shy that she
ran from her father and clung to the leg of Hannon, the ex-lag. Danny
went inside with fear in his heart because Johanna had not come to meet
him.

"Good day, is me wife well?" he asked of the strange woman who met him at
the threshold.

"Quite well, sir."

"Johanna, me brave Johanna, where are you?" he called. He ought in every
room for her. "Johanna, I've come home." She urned her head away and
looked so thin and frail that he was artled. "The child that was coming,"
he murmured.

Her eyes flashed scornfully. "Ye might well ask! Ye to stay away all that
toime without wan flick of proper affection as husband or her!" Danny was
smitten mute, shamed that he had forgotten his impending fatherhood.

"The foinest boy ye ever saw, and him to be born dead by all I underwint.
Lonesomeness and fright! The trees everlastingly moaning like banshees,
and the bunyip screaming like wan murdered, night after night. Sure,
Maeve and Hannon both tracked him as plain as bull beef on the flat rocks
around the hole."

Danny did not scoff at the bunyip. "I'm sorry, Johanna. Sure, are things
that can't be explained."

"There are plinty of them with ye, Daniel Delacy."

"I'm glad you have a woman with you, Johanna."

"Was I to be alone here with Hannon, a scandal for all the world and
Walter Moore another? I wrote to Mr Moore and he took pity on me and sent
the woman."

"Sure, Hannon is a quiet, harmless man."

"You need to be more rational."

"So a boy, and it dead," repeated Danny, subdued. "I'll need o recast me
operations."

"Ye'll need to mind ye'r ways. I can stand no more. It's nothing but a
snake killer in a territorial prison ye've reduced me to."

He dared not caress her. He retreated for the present.

He noted the rough chairs made elegant with paint, and was touched by the
efforts towards refinement. Everything seemed prosperous and ship-shape,
so really and comfortably a home to be proud of, that he was convicted of
dereliction as a husband.

He made friends with Maeve and Kathleen Moyna. "Sure a brother for you,
Maeve." Maeve smiled at Doogoolook and quickly discovered his disability.
He clung to Danny, who returned to Johanna with him and the girls.

Johanna refused to look at him. "Ye can run after every black and Tom
cat, and let ye'r own die forgotten," she said.

Danny had to go to the kitchen and eat with Doogoolook, and he persuaded
him to sleep there until a "skilling" could be erected for him. Danny was
cheered by the sight of his yearlings, the nucleus of the Delacy walers.

He had to dismount from the charger of adventure and propitiate Johanna,
not without fear that he might lose Burrabinga. Having retired from the
field of gallantry at eighteen, he was rusty in its graces, but he was
urgent to revive Johanna's affection. He devoted himself to her
throughout the winter, the more so because Walter Moore quartered himself
at Bewuck for weeks. He was a lascivious fellow and had long been the
bane of Johanna's life. Danny, who thought no evil, was at length
convinced of Walter's wicked intentions. "Sure, 'tis a grief that he is
the son of the best friend we ever can have. Otherwise I'd scald him with
a kettle of hot water without anny compunction whatever. Come with me
away to Burrabinga, Johanna, and you'll escape him and be with me to
build up our fortune."

Such was the burden of his lay, until Johanna knew that further
resistance would be useless, though her melancholy heart would not rise.
In Danny's eyes was the light that had lit them in the far' days of
Ennis, when, as a way to escape O'Gorman and have her love, she had
consented to flee to New South Wales--a cataclysmic experience to one
whose dream was an orthodox home with good carpets, china and napery.
Hardship, suffering and loneliness had been her portion.
Childbearing--four children and only two surviving--had weakened her for
marital combat. In the intoxication of passion she had chosen Danny
against her family, her country and her God, and could not now rebel. She
had no one behind her. Marriage was inviolable in her world, divorce a
scandalous phenomenon, a woman who deserted her husband a social outcast.
Johanna had to cleave unto Danny now though the allure was no longer
potent. The thrilling enfranchisement of her husband's early conjugal
behaviour had degenerated to that sheepishness and self-consciousness
irritating to a wife.



CHAPTER V


On another grand long day Danny set off once more for the hills. Four
children and Johanna had to be transported this time. The ravines between
Keebah and Burrabinga were impassable for vehicles. Doogoolook, quick at
understanding and making signs, was free from the venial sins of white
boys. He and Maeve shared one nag. Johanna had another and a side-saddle
to herself. Kathleen Moyna had a quiet old mare and Della clung on behind
her sister. Dunn had lately ridden down to find out what had become of
his master, and was now in charge of a string of pack-horses.

Hannon had married the woman sent by Mr Moore, and they were left to keep
Bewuck in order.

Johanna stayed two days at Keebah with Janet Urquhart, and from the
amenities of this home drew fresh courage to advance beyond the
surveyors, beyond the security of roads and fences.

During the descent, Danny had to go beside Johanna, while Dunn had the
children. Urquhart and Doogoolook guarded the pack-horses against the
fate of the Biblical swine. Dusk fell before the last lap, so Danny
camped at his spring where the clearest, coldest water in Australia
bubbled straight from the earth amid tree-ferns and maiden-hair. The
children had their foster relatives to introduce them to wonderland.
Johanna was weary and busy with the meal, while the men took off the
packs and prepared the bedding.

Danny had brought the colt, named Nullah-Mundoey by the blacks, and went
back to fetch him up to the company.

"He'll never go down the precipices, ye'r honour," said Dunn.

"What is there to prevent him, if I make up me moind?"

The animal, through being left behind, was heady. Danny admonished him.
"On with you! You'll soon be in the valley, and then a gentleman's career
among the ladies ever after, strutting about with a mug of consequence on
you."

The second day was a repetition of the first and Johanna grew more
depressed by the prison-like features of her retreat. Nearing dusk, the
hut was reached. Johanna could have wept with weariness and despair, but
Danny felt the elation of a conqueror. He could envision his domain
denuded of the native standing armies, a place worthy of many sons to he.

"Come in, me brave Johanna. Here's your second home, all ready waiting
for you. In another twenty years think what it will be, and us still in
our prime."

"'Tis Bunratty Castle* itself," she sighed, "and ye not contint with
_seeing_ it. Surely, Danny Delacy, this is the furthest extremity of the
globe, and there is no further place to drag me, but Purgatory itself."

[* Bunratty was a castle in County Clare "so strong that besiegers often
had to content themselves with viewing it from a distance."]

Johanna was repelled by the grime and uncouthness of her hut. It had been
a dreadful drop from Moore's to Bewuck; now she was at the end of a much
longer fall from amenities, friends, music, books and every elegancy,
even those attainable by green paint, and mortar of chopped horsehair and
cow dung to fill cracks. The children could nearly run between the slabs
of Burrabinga wails. More birds riotously guffawing, and higher
precipices than at Bewuck hastened the night. Doogoolook had already
exhibited a snake. The situation was too depolarizing for tears.

However, when hunger was satisfied, retreat to bed by the light of the
fire in the big hearth was a relief from fatigue. All were soon asleep
but Johanna, who turned over the realization that never again would she
see the soft green plains of County Glare with its old homesteads
nestling amid pet trees and friendly shrubs. Out on the flats, amid the
tussocks and the thickets of tea-tree, the plovers were almost as
plentiful as the ducks. More curlews than elsewhere--for these be
solitaries--came as night deepened, and their chorale arose above that of
the dingoes. Curlews were the banshee birds of Johanna's childhood, but
these in the swamps of Burrabinga wailed the same melody as those in the
sedges of Clare, and the homesick immigrant fell asleep comforted by a
familiar voice in a strange lost land.

If ever woman earned an inheritance for her sons in Australia it was
Johanna, but that night she was conscious only of the bruising of those
impossible descents where it was too rough to sit on a horse, where a
false step would have sent her crashing over the precipice. Now the
mountain was a mighty bastion to imprison her among fearsome trees so
high that they shut out the heavens--a frightening land of endless
forests far from the gentle Shannon.

In the morning she found that the river had none of the mourning trees of
the Murrumbidgee, and was lined with ferns more beautiful than those in
the hot-houses of the gentry in Limerick. The children found the
blossoming grevillea (rosmarinifolia) and adored it as ducks and drakes,
and plucked the chookies of the banksia--misnamed honeysuckle. The valley
was white as Ireland's May with tea-tree, and blue with mint shrub, a
paradise replete with flowers for the children. Doogoolook and Maeve were
conjurors as well as reliable guardians. The girl laughed with the
jackasses and cawed with the crows, and reproduced the heavenly warbling
of the magpies; they had wild things' eggs for toys, their young for
pets.

All importation had to be on pack-horses that negotiated the worst
pinches on their hocks. Everything possible was manufactured on the spot.
With axe and adze Dunn quarried tables and stools from green wood as
heavy as lead. Mattresses of sacking filled with grass were placed on
stringy-bark on pegs sunk in the floor. The shutters were of greenhide.

"The peasants around Ennis would be surprised to see our bothy in the
glen," observed Johanna.

"Moi, woman, the peasant's crib is a crumb begrudged from the overlord's
spoils in an effete civilization. Our shortcomings must be endured only
till the population advances."

"'Twould be rational to wait till the population had advanced."

"Och, you have no reason at you. We waited till the population was out of
bounds."

Pelts of dingoes, wallaroos and beautiful possums were to be had for
little effort. Those of half a dozen subsidiary species were not worth
garnering. Fur rugs replaced blankets, skins cushioned the rough chairs.
Johanna, tenacious in gentility, never surrendered her napery, though a
special pack-horse had to import Russian sheeting. The earthen floor was
carpeted by the hide of a packhorse, who had lost his life in pioneering
at Delacy's Cutting. For ornaments there were emu eggs and lyre birds'
tails, bullock horns and the skin of the speckled echidna, but Johanna
craved china, pictures and cross-stitch mats, and vases with glass
dangles like those which decorated the withdrawing room of her aunt in
Limerick. And, oh, for the sideboard at Cooley Hall with its carved
foxes' heads, and the stand in the hall with its ashplants and blackthorn
sticks!

In time she had a garden meagrely furnished with immigrant plants. She
struggled to extirpate anything native as a weed. She lacked originality
to knead unfamiliar products into the dough of culture. She taught Maeve
and Kathleen Moyna their letters. She instructed Maeve in her own
catechism as she remembered it without the text, left at Cooley Hall, and
forbidden by Danny. If she had not been excommunicated she could have
found ease in describing her surroundings to her home folks, but she had
no one with whom to correspond. She was starved by the spiritual
emptiness of her days, but she grew reconciled in homemaking. She never
had Danny's luminous satisfaction in pioneering. He was a torch of
purpose; she had to step as well as she could in the rugged pathway
lighted by that torch.

The blacks did not trouble them. They stopped on the far side of Numba
Nanga, distant some days' ride. Danny gave them a beast or two each
season. His live stock were prolific. He grew wheat, potatoes, maize,
pumpkins and other vegetables.


Two winters slipped around and Johanna had a male infant in her arms.
Janet Urquhart had come up from Keebah to attend her. She was a stiff,
fattish woman and found the journey down the pinches almost as arduous as
parturition.

With this son Johanna recovered her pluck, and Danny his desire for
expansion. He had not dared to go farther than Keebah all this time, and
had managed Bewuck by sending Dunn down at intervals. This was a tribute
to his consideration for Johanna, as he lacked ability to delegate, a
weakness which kept him from multiplying his own man power.

He was short of money to entice labour. In the Colony, farm labourers and
grooms buried their avocations in the general term of rouseabout, and
added the work of carpenter, builder, blacksmith, butcher or other trades
according to their capabilities. Those were the years of the tussle
between Wentworth, patriotic native son, and Gipps, ablest of Governors.
The Governor had to support the Crown against Wentworth's claim for local
control of immigration, land sales, police, education and so on, and
among the cross currents, speculation in land and general mismanagement
bore their usual fruits.

The nadir year of 'forty-three was reached. Banks failed, many people
were bankrupted and there were more than a thousand unemployed in Sydney.
No one had money to employ labour or buy land. Fine bullocks brought only
ten or fifteen shillings per head. Boiling-down establishments were
rendering them for 5/- each. In the bad 'forties tallow was one of the
Colony's chief exports. Delacy mustered cattle in the hope of disposing
of them at Goulburn, where there was a boiling-down establishment.
Johanna was willing to remain alone with Maeve, while Doogoolook, as well
as Dunn, helped to steady the cattle beyond the Murrumbidgee departure.
He was now such a part of the pipe that he did not remove it. His family
used his brow for kissing. "You won't be alone for more than four days,
barring accident. Nothing could harm you here. The bushrangers are a
thing of the past."

"I might he glad of their company," said Johanna, brave indeed, tossing
her head.

Danny was riding a "foine lump of a colt", which required a breaker, but
Danny was undaunted. The cattle were so tame after the first tiring day
that he sent Doogoolook back at once. Dunn went across the Murrumbidgee,
and then Danny pushed on alone to Bewuck. Hannon helped thence for a
couple of days, when Danny dispensed with him also, intending to pick up
the first helper available.

He could not dispose of his cattle at Goulburn, and was proceeding to
Parramatta when he met a dealer who offered a decent price if Delacy
would help him on the way to Bathurst. To this Danny agreed. He sold
everything but the Nullah-Mundoey colt and his old pack mare, and with
these steered at right angles to Major Mitchell's Murrumbidgee line on
his way home after five weeks' absence.

He rode through rolling or hilly country on his strapping horse. The tall
trees, the bright birds, the quaint animals filled him with wonder and
delight. The spaciousness, the opportunity to pioneer was sufficient to
his energy. "No man needs arms to protect himself from annything but
jungle 'beasts," he was thinking, "and they don't exist in this paradise;
and dayvil if anny one could expect people to be more civil than the
natives."

The quiet pace of the fat cattle and the luscious kangaroo grass were as
energizing to horse-flesh as boogongs to aborigines, and Lancelot
Nullah-Mundoey was flash. When Danny stood in his stirrups and shouted
"Arrah!" Lancelot was provoked into a tidy buck. A masterly prop landed
his rider on the hard ground, stunned. Lancelot made off and devoted
himself to getting rid of the slippery new saddle which had expedited
Delacy's fall.

Sunstroke would have finished him on that blazing day but for the
meat-eating ants. Pain partially brought him to. Subconsciously he
crawled to the shade of a tree. There was no settler within leagues, but
a few miles eastward, two bullock drays were snailing their way from the
Port to one of the stations farther out, and were to cross Danny's track
at sundown.

Mr Alwyn Evans, from Kilpoonta, two hundred miles farther along the
overlanders' line, had gone down many weeks earlier to meet his bride,
who had come out from England. On the previous day he had ridden forward
because of rumours of hostile tribes on the Lachlan, and the fear that
the home, which he had worked four years to establish in Major Mitchell's
wake, might be in ashes to meet its mistress. The Rufus affray and other
disgraceful incidents were only a year or two past. He had left his wife
with the drays, and several assigned men, who had proved themselves
trusty partners.

The dogs found Danny. The men unravelled the story from the horses'
tracks. Injuries such as Delacy's were common in bravura days. With the
help of her servants, Mrs Evans examined the man for wounds. His body was
snowy where the sun had not touched it. The small shapely hands were
work-roughened, but the delicate feet had always been booted. He was
dressed in slops, the rough shirt none too clean, but in a pocket was a
handkerchief of pure linen, unused. Danny was never a sniffler. The men
were interested that his back was unscathed. It was evident he was a free
man, and probably a gentleman. His papers had gone in Lancelot's
saddle-bag.

Abrasions on the right leg had kept the ants from his eyes and ears. The
flesh was eaten in spots half an inch deep and as large as a Spanish
dollar. The bone was broken. Mrs Evans put her patient in her own
sleeping accommodation and had a hunk prepared for herself in the second
dray.

Danny remained unconscious. Mrs Evans and her men did their best, leaving
cure to Nature. They swung the man on sacking fastened above the bed of
the dray, and went forward through a trying week. Then they were met by
Evans who said that the danger had been averted. He brought a surgeon to
look at Danny, a shepherd from a lonely outpost, a clever man driven to
the Colony by drink, who in the lean 'forties could find no professional
opening. He had his books and instruments and was playing a useful part
in that pioneering which called the flawed, the outlawed and the surplus
to nobler service than falls to many of the sheltered and redundant in
crowded grooves.

There were dangerous symptoms. The leg was beyond setting. The surgeon
hacked it off. There were no women at this station, so Mrs Evans would
not leave Danny. Evans upheld her action though he was rampant to be at
Kilpoonta ere rain should detain them. The swinging stretcher was
improved. They moved forward before a week had ended.

The patient's state was beyond the surgeon, who attended him on the
journey. His escape from death through mortification was a miracle
attributed to healthy blood. Following the amputation he began to groan
and then wandered into delirium. He sometimes called on his mother and
sometimes on Johanna. His accents were Irish. An advertisement describing
him was prepared to await a traveller as far as the nearest post office
and thence to Sydney for insertion in the _Sydney Morning Herald_.

Weeks from the time that Danny had been injured he reached Kilpoonta on
the Lachlan. In the joy of arrival the newly-married pair did not neglect
the stranger. Who was he? Whence had he come? There was not much
machinery for instituting inquiry. The mystery was of lively interest in
the far solitudes.

The surgeon continued to marvel that life could be retained. He would he
more surprised, he said, if the man ever regained his senses as the
symptoms pointed to injuries to the skull. They were unaware of Danny's
wiry constitution and vitality.



CHAPTER VI


Evans's advertisement appeared when Delacy's family had no idea that he
was missing. A lost man in days when convicts were for ever escaping did
not attract much attention.

Moore shared a subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald with a friend in
Sydney; when opportunity permitted he sent Delacy copies, but opportunity
did not occur at the date. Mrs Urquhart did not read and Urquhart was
busy. For one reason or another the news of Danny passed unnoticed.

The surgeon continued to marvel that life could be retained during the
typhoid state which accompanied the gangrene lingering in the amputated
leg. The sufferer showed dangerous irritation under light or noise, so
the window was darkened and he was left in quiet for hours. He would take
a sip of nourishment only from the hand of Mrs Evans. The probability
that he was a person of importance was discounted by his Irish accent,
and the fact that he had not been sought. His hosts had the idea that he
was an escaping Irish rebel. They were conservative, but too kind to hand
over to officialdom any creature so helpless and suffering, and the
surgeon was curious to see how long his patient would last.

Also at that time they had bigger worries than a helpless person to whom
they had grown accustomed. Hostile blacks kept them in suspense. In that
region there had been bitter encounters, with each side guilty of
gruesome atrocities. There were floods, and scab in the flocks, and a
struggle with an unscrupulous overlander, who tried to usurp Kilpoonta.
Evans too met with an accident--broken arm and collarbone--which gave his
wife and the surgeon a second patient. As Mr Evans convalesced, Mrs Evans
had more time for her first patient and insisted that his improvement was
so marked that he would recover. She and the surgeon watched with renewed
interest. The poison slowly drained from the wound and at length youth
and strength returned Delacy from death. No rontgen rays ever revealed to
what extent his brain box had been injured. He regained his mind one
morning following an easy night to find himself in a neat bed. A lady was
sitting near fashioning tiny garments. That was all for the time. He fell
into a long restoring sleep.


A day later he awakened to refinement and easy circumstances as compared
with the primitive hut and fur rugs where he had left Johanna and the
children. The gentlewoman--still sewing--reminded him of his mother in
Ennis, so far away. Was it a dream? If he spoke would this angelic
presence dissolve? He slept again.

When dawn once more reddened the levels, he recognized the guffawing
birds. The lady was replaced by a rough, sunburned man. Neither heaven
nor Ireland.

Another twenty-four hours and he had strength to demand, "Where am I?
What has come to me?"

"You had an accident--nasty crack on the head."

His hand went to his shaven poll. "That dayvil of a Lancelot got rid of
me; to some extint that I should be in bed with me hair off and not to
know it."

His questions were cautiously answered.

"Is rue leg broke?" he demanded, noting the hump in the bedding. "It
certainly is."

Danny was tractable. A broken leg was a mere inconvenience. The surgeon
insisted upon sleep. Danny slept, too weak for anything else. At each
awakening he was increasingly alert. He gave his name and history, but at
intervals the surgeon shut off talk in the interests of Danny's head.

He was astonished to be so far out of his course, and startled when he
found that the season vacated before Christmas was now into autumn. "Be
the powers, me poor Johanna will be thinking I'm dead and eaten by the
blacks all this time. How could it happen that I have been in darkness so
long?...and a centipede could have recovered all his legs since then."

"Fever reduced you to death's door. Crutches are ready when you get a
little strength."

By damn! he'd try his leg that very minute. Mrs Evans was summoned by his
loud tones. She explained gently that the fracture had been compound,
that to save his life, well, it had been necessary to remove a portion of
the bone.

Danny's eyes blazed in blue flame with resistance. He flung the
bedclothes back and saw that the mass of lint stopped short. He shouted.
He tore the linen away and found an unpleasing stump. When he knew that
he had but one leg he gave way, heroically unashamed. Such was his
courage that he could afford to be. Implicit in his spiritual and mental
fibre was a quality that excluded fear of conviction of cowardice, by
himself or others.

Mrs Evans petted him like a child. When his paroxysm subsided he fell
asleep and did not wake until the birds were laughing against the sinking
sun. Had some long lost god endowed them with derision?

Danny sat up. Mrs Evans protested that he would bring on his death. "Not
at all. 'Tis all in the moind, and my moind is set."

Evans could not send a messenger because the blacks were again hostile.
Not a man could be spared. Danny was of opinion that the blacks had not
been properly treated. He suggested that they should be conciliated with
offers of sheep. "Why should ye not pay rint to the poor dayvils?"

This was dismissed as nonsense by the richer and more warlike squatters
who had settled on the overland line. Delacy was a sentimental Irishman
who had long been "out of his head". The alarums of encounters with
aborigines served to detain him while he gained strength.

The tan had faded, leaving his cheeks white. Always spare, his flesh had
wasted to show bones as slender as a girl's. He could have passed for a
boy but for his beard. The pipe had been lost. He declared that he was
the father of three children living, and two dead. His friends' hearts
were moved by the hampering loss of a leg to one with such heavy domestic
responsibilities plus the fate of wresting a livelihood from impenetrable
wilds.

After the first outburst no word of repining was heard. "Sure, better min
than meself have achieved greatness with wan leg." Delacy's cheerful
pluck endeared him to all. At the end of a week he insisted upon mounting
a horse, and would have departed but for the impending siege.

When the blacks retreated towards the Murray, the elder Evans returned
from pursuit and agreed to accompany Delacy. He refused the escort of the
younger brother because Mrs Evans was on the way to motherhood. She gave
her patient her own mare. David Evans limited each day to Delacy's
endurance and to prevent the re-opening of the wound. They cut distance
by passing Keebah.

Danny could scarcely conquer the flesh during the last half-day. The mare
trembled on the edge of the descents, but followed the more ruthlessly
urged animals without falling, while Danny clenched his teeth and hung
on. Evans suggested camping by the spring, now called Breakfast Lookout,
but Danny would not leave his Johanna another night in solitude and
doubt. He thought to find her there. What had she to do but superintend
Dunn and Doogoolook? lie accepted heroic passivity as Nature's design for
women. When he was down on the level he asked for a nip of rum and his
hand shook as he took the flask.

Onward, onward, the pain in his mutilated limb overlooked in the
excitement of return! None but mild ridges remained. The horse track led
where a salt shed was an obelisk of settlement; then the homestead with a
timbered rise beyond. The sun had set behind a wild peak leaving the
cultivation flat and house plot bathed in molten afterglow, and peopled
with birds which had come down from the snow lands for the winter. Scrub
wallabies and kangaroos scurried into the shadows at the approach of the
horsemen.

Delacy raised his Irish halloa, and the shrill coo-coo-ee-coo that he had
learned from his black friends.

"Munny-munny-lumby-adjong-cooo!" *

[* I am indebted to Mrs W. A. Lampe (nee Wilkinson), for this lovely
aboriginal call. She grew up on Yellowin Station, one of the early
squattages situated in the fountain country of the boogongs and tea-tree
and tree-ferns. The first Wilkinsons were gentle with the blacks, gave
them bullocks for their annual feasts, and enjoyed friendship with them.
The gins used to do the station washing, and Mrs Lampe relates that when
they went to the creek for water they were often slow to return. One
piccaninny used to wail when his mother thus left him. The other gins
would try to pacify hint without avail, awl then resort to the call which
meant "Hurry-up, hurry-up with the water!" The last word, "coo", would be
prolonged, and many notes higher--a clear, ringing top note.--M.F.]

No baying of dogs. No whuffing of Rover--pari bloodhound--who guarded the
children and their mother. Not a yelp from a cattle cur. Only the click
of the disturbed plovers, and the vesper chortles of the master ironists
tossed from point to point, taken up and repeated softly from afar, as in
an orchestra--_crescendo-diminuendo-dacapo-coda_.

No smoke above the chimney. The nearing homestead looked strange and
small. Delacy's senses had to accept the impossible. The main portion of
his home had vanished as completely as the fences and lakes that melt
upon approach from the vast levels of mirage land. No woman nor children,
nor black retainer, nor cow; only the voice of the wild river which
deepened a lornness ghostly and dismaying.

They reached the remains of a fire where a home had been. Desolation. It
looked like the work of marauders. There was no message or sign of
Johanna. The blow was too heavy for Danny in his weakness, his physical
agony. He wept and called to high heaven for his wife and little ones,
whom he never more would see.

Evans sat him down gently. He insisted upon camping. Night was falling
and Delacy was unfit to go on. Exhaustion and rum brought him to sleep
despite all.



CHAPTER VII


When Dunn, the ex-felon, turned back from his employer, he thought of a
fellow lag who kept a sly grog shop in the ranges beyond Gounderu. He had
stood to his trust when left in solitude, but a terrible craving,
irresistible as sexual lust, suddenly began to torture him. For years he
had been content with the station ration of rum, but an internal fire now
sent him on a jag of weeks which dissolved his horses and gear. He
returned to consciousness a pariah. Weeks had passed and Delacy would be
home. Dunn felt himself a horse thief and worse. He was compelled to
disappear.

Johanna waited valiantly. Dunn was to have returned at the end of four
clays. At the end of eight she concluded that Danny had needed him for
longer, and composed herself for Danny's return, at the end of a month at
latest.

She had neither messenger nor mail service, but the aborigines had. The
cattle moved restlessly in the gullies of the wild runs. Doogoolook
reported from smoke signals that his people were moving on Burrabinga.
The lad was intelligent and of noble character. He could make himself
understood by signs to Maeve, and she interpreted to Johanna.

She had an idea of making out to Keebah, but the army was approaching
that way, and how was she to climb the mountain walls with a babe in arms
and two little girls?

"Mary, Mother of God, help me," she prayed, dormant phrases coming to her
lips.

The first wave of fear past, her courage and experience re-established
her. These were Doogoolook and Maeve's people, so she sent the lad to
inform them that she would give them some beasts.

The tribe was fat and hearty. Game was plentiful. The boogongs at Keebah
had been more than they could consume. Even the gins were gorged. The
whole family, including gins and piccaninnies, were making a detour to
call on their patrons, out of curiosity, friendliness, and as part of the
annual walkabout. Some of the gins, who wore a rag of clothes, were
already known to Johanna since the Bewuck encampment, and when they
called on her, her Irish warmth delighted them and cemented sisterhood.
They talked to Maeve excitedly in their soft voices and filled the place
with their laughter, in distant aeons captured and standardized by the
big grey kingfishers. They were proud of Maeve's position among the
whites. A miracle greater than reversal of a "boning" had established
Danny as a chief of good magic. Here was Doogoolook, strong and happy, a
member of a white tribe.

In warm weather he dressed in knee pants, and Johanna made him a gaily
decorated shield for his scarred chest, which his people took to be the
regalia of royalty.

"Minetinkit, that pfella budgery!" they guffawed.

In honour of the bullock they staged a feast and a play corroboree, in
which women had the part of accompanists. Johanna was treated with honour
and with her brood beheld a spectacle seen by few white women.

She gave her friends all that she could spare from her stores in the way
of clothes, tobacco, flour, raisins and potatoes. They prized the
potatoes, which the warriors carried away on their spears. They neither
thieved nor destroyed otherwise and at the end of a few days moved on,
working their way down the river before autumn, and looking for fight.
They left the valley unspoiled. Not a tree was mutilated except to
extract a possum. No bush fires followed in their wake. Graciously,
peacefully they had ceded their territory to Delacy.

Enlivened by the leis, Johanna turned with fresh heart to her tasks,
while looking hourly for Danny. He must have gone on to Parramatta, she
concluded, as the weeks ran into the second month. Day followed day, but
no horseman emerged from the mighty aisles of curabbi and peppermint at
the other side of the little flat where the curlews wailed so friendlily.
There was only the ceaseless song of the river like a wild wind, and
chortling birds, the warbling magpies and clouds of other songsters, or
the "pheasants" mimicking her cock, to embellish the haunting stillness
of the cathedral forests, and Doogoolook's shadow-like presence to
accentuate the solitude. At night there were the unfailing boobooks and
dingoes to augment the curlews' concert, and the native cats to make
raids upon her precious hens.

Still no halloa or whip-crack announced Danny's return,

Rations were running low, and at the end of six weeks Doogoolook took a
letter to Keebah. Doogoolook drew with a stick on the ground the fetching
of Urquhart, but Johanna substituted his reading the letter, and
Doogoolook returning next day. This was conveyed by one lie-down in
sleep--head-on-hand with closed eyes--and quick jump-up.

Still a child in years by white standards, and mute, he went faithfully
on his errand; Johanna watched him to the edge of the clearing, and,
bereft of her protector, turned about in he? internment camp and attacked
a snake which had appeared as the boy departed.

She retired early, drawing her chicks about her, but doors cannot be
barred against loneliness and fear. Bewuck, despite its bunyip and ghost,
was by comparison, a centre of population. In those days she grew fond of
Maeve, who was always cheerful, and unafraid of the great bush.

At the end of the fourth day the forest was still without Doogoolook, and
Johanna grew uneasy lest the mare had lost her footing on a bad pinch,
and hurtled into the gulf. However, Maeve was a good fisher, and the hens
laid.

That afternoon Johanna and Maeve went seeking the cow that had escaped,
Johanna carrying the baby. Kathleen Moyna and Della were left at home,
and what happened, who can say? They had heard their mother speak of the
need to keep the fire in because that morning there had been trouble to
relight it from the ashes. From across the clearing Johanna saw smoke
issuing from the roof. She deposited the baby and sped to the rescue. She
readied the threshold in an agony of fear and found the children in
flames. She extinguished the smaller in a tub of water, but Kathleen
Moyna ran screeching into the breeze, with her mother in pursuit. She
caught the child at length, and in beating out the flames was herself
scorched on wrists and hands.

She screamed to Maeve to go after the baby lest ants or snakes should be
endangering him, while she attended to Kathleen Moyna. The house was a
bonfire.

As a fire precaution Danny had placed the kitchen at a ludicrous distance
from the house. In this were the beef casks and other stores, and the
distracted woman had this shelter when the fire in the main house
subsided. Maeve had recaptured the cow, so the babies' principal diet was
assured.

Kathleen Moyna's body was shockingly burned. Mercifully she had passed
beyond consciousness and lay as if asleep. Johanna's hands were so
painful that only despair and the demands upon her kept her from fainting
time after time. The sole alleviation was in keeping her singed flesh in
the cold water of the river. Maeve did the same for the other child, who
was but slightly burned.

Morning came. Della was free from pain and slept safely. The fire had
died out of Johanna's hands, but they were like bladders. She tore up her
undergarments and bound her fingers in grease. Kathleen Moyna still
breathed though Johanna saw that she could not last long, that indeed it
was better that she should not recover, though the mother's heart cried
out against bereavement. The day was loud with jackasses, morn, noon and
evening. The plovers clicked on the eerie flats with their tea-tree
groves, beautiful as Asiatic art, and as alien to the early British
settlers.

There was firewood to place against the loss of the fur robes at night.
Only Doogoolook's remained. Johanna was doubtful of finding the track to
Keebah and transporting three small children, one of them dying.
Doogoolook had taken the quiet mare. It was unlikely that she could catch
another horse. Even so, how could she carry sufficient provisions and
tackle to camp during their slow and painful progress? Maeve was sure
that she knew the way, and that she could carry the baby, with Della also
walking, while Johanna nursed Kathleen Moyna on the horse. Johanna
remembered the Burrabinga to be crossed three times. She had to abandon
the project until her hands could heal. She would have welcomed a
bushranger.


Meanwhile, Doogoolook had reached Keebah. Urquhart and most of his men,
like Danny, were away with sheep to a boiling-down plant. Mrs Urquhart,
with an immigrant woman and a ticket-of-leaver, was at the station, but
they were all illiterate. There was no other neighbour within thirty
miles. They could not understand Doogoolook's sign language, nor he make
sense of theirs. He drew figures to indicate Mrs Delacy and the children.
Those assembled understood that it was something about Mr Delacy. Had he
tumbled down? No. It seemed to be some business between Danny and Sandy.
Mrs Urquhart could only await a person who could read. At the end of
four days Doogoolook grew so uneasy that he slipped away on foot in the
dead of night.

Maeve discerned him reappearing one morning from the boles of the timber.
He conveyed that Mr Urquhart was absent and that the others shook their
heads over the letter. His return gave slight hope, but Kathleen Moyna
ceased to breathe an hour later. Her mother determined to set out for
Keebah with the body. Maeve and Doogoolook yarded the second quiet horse
and it was packed with provisions and the rug. Johanna perched on top
with the dead child, wrapped in a sack, in her arms. The boy took his
turn with Maeve in carrying the baby. Della, clad in charred rags,
toddled bravely at the beginning. Up the steep pinches Doogoolook held
the horse's tail and put Della on his shoulder. In places he had to take
his charges singly. Now and again Johanna struggled along on foot with
her burden, while Maeve, with the baby in her arms, rode with Della
behind her.

Kathleen Moyna had been named for the aunt who had sheltered Johanna, and
also for the cousin who had aided her elopement. Johanna felt that old
Cooley's curse had now reached even to her helpless child. Despair
deadened her anguish and kept her calm. Progress was painful to her
tortured hands in meagre binding, and to Della's scorched face and limbs.

They were settled for a third night when Urquhart found them. He was
shocked by the tragedy and their present plight, and to learn that Mrs
Delacy had been so long alone. He persuaded Johanna to let him take
Kathleen Moyna and left the exhausted party settled with Doogoolook while
he rode hard to Keebah for assistance.

He was back a little after daylight with helpers and comforts, and they
all reached Keebah by ten o'clock that night.

Janet was awaiting them beyond the stables with hot soup and a capacious
heart. Johanna was laid in a comfortable bed. Della screamed with pain
and weariness and clung to Maeve until bread and honey tempted her.
Doogoolook was commended as a budgery pfella in ear-splitting shouts. All
waste of breath, but the gestures nourished his affections. Finally all
were at rest.


Kathleen Moyna was buried at the foot of the flower garden beside an
Urquhart infant who had succumbed to convulsions.


Delacy's horses had not returned and there had been no letter from him,
though the mail had been collected from the nearest township. Janet kept
Johanna in bed. To ease her mind Urquhart rode to Bewuck and thence to Mr
Moore at Bandalong. He returned without news of Delacy. Mr Moore was much
concerned. He started inquiries, but by now the Evanses were no longer on
the alert for anything of the kind.

Johanna felt in her lonely nostalgic mind that Danny had deserted her for
livelier adventures or the seductions of a fresher woman. This was unjust
to her experience of Danny. Urquhart maintained that it was too early to
regard Delacy as a deserter, that he was a pure merino who would not
abscond from a fine young wife and children.

"Straight goers among men," said Johanna, "nevertheless don't care how
crooked they are with a woman whin another takes their eye."

Mrs Urquhart nodded her head, and Sandy, remembering passages, steered
from the subject.

Urquhart and Moore were of opinion that violence had ended Delacy. The
disappearance of Dunn, transported for a criminal act, lent colour to
this. Urquhart tried to rally Johanna, but she was haunted by sick fears
and lacked inner sanctuary. She had repudiated her own creed and could
not adopt Danny's personal brand of free thought. No dogma guilty of
imposing mental shackles could have lasted with Delacy. Even in youth,
tolerant and philosophical though he was, Johanna had found him adamant
in Protestantism in so far as it meant freedom of thought. No womanly
blandishments had ever affected him in this direction; as well have tried
to cajole him to dishonesty. It was hard on Johanna. She accepted her
trials as emanating from her father's curse, and retreated upon stoicism.
The Uquharts were Presbyterians. With them she found hospitality,
friendship and companionship after loneliness, but no religious solace.

Her future had to be considered as the weeks passed without news of
Danny. Mr Moore wanted her back at Bandalong. Johanna desired to return
to Bewuck. Danny or no Danny she had renounced Burrabinga for ever.
Hitherto she had accepted the faithful Doogoolook as complacently as a
dog, but now, despite his muteness, he had become something between an
elder son and a younger brother.

Mrs Urquhart's welcome never waned. Her comfort in a companion was born
of woman-scarcity and isolation, and the Delacy children mingling with
the Urquhart's added zest to life.

So time sped and another day had broken at Burrabinga. Rain had
obliterated tracks long since, but Evans found utensils that had been
used after having been through the fire, and potatoes remained as
evidence that there had been no robbery by blacks.

"Your family will be safe with the nearest neighbour," Evans remarked.

Danny's soul was renewed by hope. He set out for Keebah immediately, but
his mind could not force his tortured flesh to the whole journey in one
day.

It was a great moment when the travellers came within range of Mrs
Urquhart's candles. Here was a Danny with one trouser leg pinned up, a
Danny no longer as swift as a steel spring in recoil, an emaciated
fragile Danny noisily clouting his way, but with authentic flame-blue
eyes and booming voice, dismissing his pain in the excitement of finding
wife and weans, with Doogoolook executing capers of welcome; a Danny
without self-consciousness as to how a wife might regard a mutilated
spouse, a crippled breadwinner; a Danny so overjoyed that speculations
about his Johanna's attitude were crowded out.

Her resentment of imagined desertion was washed away in the reunion, but
site was conspicuously pallid and unresponsive, the iron of tragedy fresh
in her soul. The full extent of the catastrophe could not be withheld
from Danny. He was already so near to collapse from pain and exhaustion
that Evans enlisted Mrs Urquhart to prepare a bed and in it, with the aid
of rum, his charge took this final blow lying down.


Delacy survived that journey as well as the shock of the calamity that
met him, though he was compelled to lie up for several weeks at the
Urquharts'.

He spoke of erecting another hut at Burrabinga, but Johanna vetoed this.
"Me wits forsook me to go there in the first place to such a lost
hole--collecting asses' loads of sorrow and heart-scald. Even ye should
have more sinse than to think ye can scale those walls with wan leg. 'Tis
a goat with four ye had better be, for ye'r owld Bunratty Castle."

"Arrah! Haven't I just been up and down with me wan leg, and me not yet
restored to full fighting trim. Wan leg is as good as two if the moind is
set."

"And what is more, Danny Delacy, while ye are capering about from wan
place to the next, how am I to know if the leaks in the roof at Bewuck
haven't dripped on me few best bits, and the weevils to have eaten the
rest, if the place is not burned down entirely and somewan walked off
with the unprotected remains?"

Danny's leg was, still as sensitive as a boil, and his head had an
unprecedented tendency to ache in the sun. He took to an outsize in straw
wide-awakes that year and filled it with the cool leaves of the
peppermint. When his head had recovered, the leaves had become a habit.
They made his head look enormous, but his actions, motivated by utility,
were unrestricted by what the timid might think. When the wags made him
their butt, he was contemptuous, "With the wits of jackasses, and
destitute of conversation, they should be thankful that I supply a
subject."

The death of Kathleen Moyna, combined with Johanna's attitude and state,
forced him to relinquish Burrabinga temporarily. He attributed his
retreat to advancing winter and the need to procure an artificial limb.
He was so proficient with his crutch that he sometimes resembled an
escaping kangaroo. As soon as his strength returned, he departed with
Doogoolook, leaving Johanna at Keebah.



CHAPTER VIII


The voice of the aboriginal Dryopes held the welcome of old acquaintance
for Johanna as she descended the gorge. The cause of their lamentation
had retreated beyond the conjecture of mythology, but its melody was now
consonant with Johanna's mood. Like Queen Pomare--lately dethroned--she
would never permit one of her casuarinas to be cut down, and, in later
years, when she rarely left home, she missed the lullaby of river and
trees. Having survived searing ordeals, she was relieved by comparative
peace, and revived among her prized household possessions, though there
was now in her emotions a chamber sealed and silent, sacred to Kathleen
Moyna. Contentment gradually grew out of acceptance. The exiled daughter
of Erin graduated as a citizen of New South Wales.

She had renounced the mountains for ever.

Not so Danny. Unconquerable longing assailed him each time he came up
from the chasm through which the Murrumbidgee elbows its way to the great
plains. As he would rein-in to pick out the notch in the ramparts that
led to Burrabinga, he would fall into worshipful contemplation of the
ranges, thrown one upon another like storm waves petrified when the world
had cooled. Their foreverness soothed and inspired. The dignity of
permanence lay on a view superb as that from Edessa in Old Greece down
the valley of the Vardar towards Olympus. But the view towards Salonika
is bearded with legend reaching back to the dawn of human history. The
spoliation and squalor, the desecration and degradation of which human
history is compounded equally with glory, had been cleansed from Delacy's
province since eras lost in time. There for the dreamers, the
path-finders, the road-makers with the forcefulness to project their
personality upon their environment, lay a world inviting light-hearted
effort and glamorous deeds.

"Oh, moi, oh, moi!" Delacy would ejaculate out of that emotion which
suffuses the receptive soul when refreshed at the well of beauty or
nobility. He would flap his horse with his big hat, scattering the
contents like moths about him, and go on his way with a tag from the
classics or a verse from the song books, whose contents were deciphered
by the light of camp or hut fire and put to a tune by the musical, or
bellowed with tuneless satisfaction by the less gifted.

Bewitched anew by the ranges, Danny would be restless. "A man is a fool
to leave that territory, after all the preliminaries, till it is jumped
on him."

"Better it be jumped by another fool next time. You a cripple. Bunratty
Castle, a prison of stone, crags fit only for the blacks to pick grubs,
and the native dogs to howl in."

"When me artificial limb is attached, 'twill make a power of difference."

"Little difference! Ye'd better learn reason in time."

Danny was ambitious for an apparatus made by a renowned artisan in
Sydney, who had learned his craft after the Napoleonic campaigns, but the
tragedy of Kathleen Moyna was too fresh for him to disregard Johanna's
views. He occupied himself by clearing more cow paddocks on the river
banks. In the mortal combat with the trees--a combat waged by every
settler--there was enough to engage his depleted energy and impeded
activity for a year or two. He dreamed of having his holding as clear as
the plains of County Clare, with mayhap a ladylike imported tree or two
for ornament, and an orchard about the house.

Where Danny extirpated so ardently, the curious can find to-day a
well-grown forest. A gnarled stick or two of quince trees withstand the
sheep amid native shrubs just below the bunyip hole. Where Johanna set
her garden, still live the flag lilies--royal emblems of republican
France. Those educated to explore pioneer homestead sites may discern
amid the lusty yellow-box and wattle trees the ridges of Danny's first
cultivation. There are the "lands" where earth, purified by a thousand
years, nay, aeons of fallowhood, first gave up its grannie grubs to the
magpies who warbled liquid notes of thanksgiving, and to the kookaburras,
who filled the valley with grotesque mirth, so disturbing to Johanna. A
century has mellowed that laughter to enchantment for the children of
Australia, has rendered her exiles nostalgic for the morning and evening
fanfare of glee.

The indigenous standing army, which made and held the earth on the
hillsides, has vanquished a thousand Dannies since then, anti obliterated
their works. Not yet is there understanding of this continent, so
sensitive and gently fierce. Neither conquered nor despoiled, and only in
parts defaced, it challenges the grandsons and great-grandsons and
great-granddaughters of all the half-articulate Dannies to hold or to
lose their incalculable heritage.

Johanna reared turkeys and set up a dairy. She had so much butter that
she stored it in "kags".

Delacy hoped with butter, tallow, hides and other skins to obtain cash to
renew squatting licences for Burrabinga, and to buy an artificial leg. He
groaned to think of his stock being lost in the mountains.

"Yell never be able to get round there again," said Johanna.

"With a new leg, I'd lepp over the moon."

He commissioned the wheelwright at the township to build a dray, and when
he announced that he was going to Sydney, Johanna said that she too would
go. Her nerve had not recovered sufficiently to let him stray alone
again. Danny welcomed her company. Hannon and his wife had a hut beyond
the cultivation paddock, and with Maeve and Doogoolook could take care of
the children. There were now five: Della and Robert; William and Honoria,
the twins born at Keebah; Harry, the youngest, a few months of age. Three
years had gone since Delacy lost his leg.

So the Delacys retraced their early journey along the Great Southern
Road, convict-built from Port Jackson to Port Phillip, which they met at
the Township. Two of Mr Moore's drays travelled with them for mutual
protection. Her Majesty's mails had long run regularly to many points.
Mails by private subscription went quite far out. The contingent of human
beings advancing against the arboreal army of occupation was beginning to
scrimshaw a history at the furthest extremity of the globe, where record
of human achievements had been relegated to recesses of time beyond the
research of ethnologists or archaeologists.

Mrs Delacy and the baby were perched among the malodorous merchandise.
Mounted on Mrs Evans's mare, Danny drove or led his bullocks. The teams
doubled in steep or boggy places. Danny was no bullocky, except thereby.
Not his the patience to become a craftsman in any of his various
activities. He triumphed by force of mind over body. With an "Arrah, by
damn!" he dismissed obstacles. "The moind! The moind! It's all in the
moind!" was the phrase by which his associates best remember him.

A journey of some weeks brought them to the turnpike at the end of George
Street, and they wound downwards to the Quay, impressed by the progress
made in the thirteen years since they had arrived. Many of the wooden
skillings had been replaced by brick houses overlaid with cement to look
like freestone. Some of them were as good as the houses in the better
parts of Limerick. Even the lower orders had verandaed cottages and
garden plots in Pitt Street that were more comfortable than Quebarra,
Glenties or Bewuck. Hyde Park was being reformed from a racecourse.

They went again to the select boarding establishment on Church Hill, with
its patrons of the 'first respectability. Johanna was captivated by the
Markets, which were opened on Tuesdays and Fridays by ringing a bell at 7
a.m., and which were cleansed by water from a pump in the centre.
Everybody was agreed that these premises were so elegant that they were
an amphitheatre rather than a market.

Mrs Delacy loved Sydney and would that her lot had been there. This could
never be with Danny. Neighbours within sight had a stifling effect on
him. He thrilled to wide horizons. His spirit had been endowed by the
seas that belaboured Erin's shores with an impetus unimpeded from the
Pole, or rolled away to America without obstruction. His descent upon
Sydney was a rare spree, an excrescence upon Life. Johanna had rather
that Sydney were Life and the bush a removable excrescence. She was
delighted by a play called _Blackeyed Susan_, preceded by "God Save the
Queen", and followed by _Monsieur Tonson_, a farce.

Danny laughed and clapped with abandon, but more nourishing to him were
the conversations with gentlemen at the boarding house, and anywhere he
encountered them--in hotel bars, in banks and business houses and shops.

While Johanna was disrobing for the night he would serve up a résumé of
the day's pabulum. The Colony was still in the throes of the 'forties,
which had closed the Bank of Australia, and were driving mechanics to
replace labourers at £12 and £15 per annum.

"Sure, the tonnage in the harbour is only fifty per cent of what it has
been. 'Tis a mortal curious state of affairs in a new country when all we
can do is bile down prime beef cattle for tallow, and suffer the stink of
the plants from Yass on the Port Phillip Road to Bungarrabee on the
Western Highway.

"The Colony is wallowing in a general financial stringency which is to be
attributed to the premature and abrupt termination of transportation and
assignment, and the extravagant over-speculation during several years.
Sure, Johanna, I've been talking to a man at the hide store, and there is
a great importation of grain and salted meats and other commodities,
which has sucked the cash from us. I was talking to the manager of the
bank about the high rate of interest on money, together with the monopoly
of bank discounts. Says he, 'Mr Delacy, banks are not philanthropical
institutions. 'Bedad, no,' says I to that, 'they resimble more a
bushranging gang."

"And now whoi would ye be so vulgar to a gintleman like a bank manager?"

"The depreciation of wool in the English market is resulting in the
Colony being in such debt for English goods that the English merchants
have refused further credit," continued Danny in unbroken flow.

Even as it was to be generations after Danny's day!

The wiseacres of his generation were assured that the Colony would
prosper on stringent economy, especially if labour could be procured for
the veriest subsistence wage.

"'Tis a situation to give the old corruptionists a fit of the cholera, if
the presint posture of affairs was permanint; but me moind remains
undaunted as I look ahead. In a young and springing community with
lashings of opportunity, there is no distress in a little stagnation.
'Tis but an opening skirmish to enterprises the extint of which cannot be
dreamt--no, not even by a man who had enough drink to stiffen a tinker,
and him not to be stiffened...Though I can't help but be thinking they
haven't much rayson who want us to be brought to the knees by economy.
Doesn't it stand to rayson that what we want is more consumption of
commodities, not less; and the way to further that would be to double all
the workers' wages instead of halving them."

"It's well that ye came out of ye'r own accord, Danny Delacy, or I'm
thinking, with some of ye'r notions, ye'd have been sint out as a
seditionist."

"By damn! What I say is irrefutable! Couldn't wan with no more intellect
than an eft observe throughout history that we always starve when
commodities are cheap, and when we economize. We thrive when they are
dear. Wouldn't you think, it's so obvious by now, that instid of economy
to right things, they'd experiment on what extravagance and distributing
things to the needy would do?"

"Och, there's no rayson at ye!" said Johanna. "Aren't all the wise ones
at the head of things saying in the paper that it's the expensiveness of
the Government, coupled together with private extravagance, that has
brought us to this pitch of ruin. Didn't I bear that foine gintleman at
dinner say that we have got ahead of German wool growers in the quality
of merino wool, and that it is setting us on our feet again?"

"Sure, did you note he also said that there was ruin in Germany
therefore? There is poor satisfaction to my moind in progress that is
made at the expinse of trouble elsewhere. There can be no stability in
cut-throat capers."

"Sure, I read in the paper with me own eyes that without cheap and
abundant labour the community cannot expect to prosper."

"That's what I'm saying--at the expinse of slaves. I'm free meself and
would wish every man-jack, black and white, to be the sameaquil before
his Maker. If men are beaten down so that they work for rations and
slops, who'll buy our commodities? Answer me that!"

"Och, Danny-boy, if what ye say was true, if it was ye who had the wisdom
at ye, wouldn't they be putting ye at the head of things instead of to be
ignoring ye among the native dogs and the precipices?"

"Wait till I get me new limb. As sure as there is a cross on the ass,
there can't help being abundance for all. Think of the progress! The time
between here and the old country has been cut in half since we came out.
We can now get the Melbourne papers in a few days after they are printed.
Me moind is on the grand future when all these little difficulties of
disorganization will be dissolved."

It was beneath his vision that the human race--most inefficient of
mammals--three or four generations ahead would still be unable to feed
and clothe and care for its members with adequacy though in possession of
a world teeming with every commodity raw and manufactured, and with
inconceivable discoveries and inventions at its disposal.

Delacy attended some of the Usury Debates and met the representative of
his territory in the Legislative Council. "To-morrow I must go see him
again and give him some advice and information."

"'Tis a pity ye couldn't moind ye'r own business and leave a man like
that to his own. Too many can put their hand in ye'r bag. By ye'r
tendency to be always helping others, and a scatteration in ye'r
projects, ye will arroive nowhere in the ind. Let others look after
themselves. They never consider ye."

"Sure, where would I be to-day if Mrs Evans had not made me her business,
but had gone on moinding her own?"

"Och, ye'r waking the baby with ye'r blather."

"Put out the candle, me brave Johanna. I'll be as quiet as a mouse."


Danny disposed of his "kags", and hides and horsehair with fair profit,
considering the financial stringency. In their place he procured axes and
tomahawks, a saw, a tarpaulin, two-and-a-half and three-bushel bags, some
suits of slops, a keg of hurdle and horseshoe nails, a saddle and bridle
bits, percussion caps; striped shirts with linen collars for township
wear; a roll of China matting, and another "kag" of paint as a concession
to Johanna's elegancies. He also purchased American flour and lemon syrup
as delicacies; and Seidlitz powders and castor oil, and bluestone and
tobacco; and Day and Martin's blacking because he got a damaged case
cheaply; and an inspiring pipe to replace the treasure lost these three
years, as well as many another article indispensable to him.

Johanna found a companion at the select boarding establishment and had an
enlivening holiday. Amusements, paved walks under her feet, to have
vegetables, animal and other produce purchasable in the shops--this was
life. It had been her ambition at Cooley Hall, but Danny had carried her
off to a State where everything had to be grown or manufactured. She
revelled as far as the capacity of purse and dray allowed.

She could not resist softest cashmeres and organdies. There were coloured
handkerchiefs, and gimp and bugles for trimming. A pongee handkerchief
and gay print were for Maeve, and a gaudy bundle handkerchief for
Doogoolook. There were slippers and hose, and a leghorn bonnet "richly
trimmed"; and ribbons and perfume and lace; and a gingham umbrella for
4/-. There were green baize and steel busks, a worsted table cover, an
Indian shawl, satin brocade; and a dainty pair of black lace gloves at
1/3. Johanna had an ineradicable joy in elegancies for their own sake.
She had a longing for a set of horsehair furniture, but limitation in
means and transportation postponed these. She compromised on currants and
preserved ginger, a tea set of Staffordshire, and a little music box that
played three tinkling tunes.

Delacy informed himself of the growth of the horse trade with India, and
plumed himself upon the three mares that had travelled with their noses
on the tail of the dray. Cornet of Parramatta, a blood horse of Arab
strain, was to add his lineage to the walers of Burrabinga.

The return journey began as soon as the new leg was ready. When
approaching the Gib they were stuck-up by one of the intermittent bands
of bushrangers that had arisen to attack the mail coaches. All teams and
other travellers were mustered in the hollow awaiting the mail from
Goulburn. The contents of the drays were ransacked. Tea, currants and
flour were emptied on the earth and the teamsters left to salvage what
they could from flies, ants and grit.

Mrs Delacy had a triumph remembered by her descendants. She was still
bright-eyed and handsome and plied a fearless tongue against the robbers.
She was set to cook a meal while the men were bailed-up until disarmed
and relieved of valuables. Danny was for chastising his jailer with his
crutch, to which he still clung. Johanna reassured him, "Sure, they'll do
no harm to an old woman hurrying home to four childre as well as the wan
that's crying for her now."

"The dam of five, and _that_ for a sire! Were men so scarce?" guffawed the
leader of the gang. "Does he put that forty gallon hat on to make him
important?"

"No, to contain his brains," said Johanna.

"And he, the preposterous vaygabond," shouted Danny, "by the same token
would need nothing but a paynut shell."

The man let Johanna keep her trinkets. "Begob, we can afford that to the
only lady with us." Another had been ordered to halt but had whipped her
horse into a gallop. She was a bride, and her husband was forced to
gallop with her. "Let them burst," the man had decreed with a coarse
imprecation concerning newly-weds.

Johanna tried to silence Danny. The leader set her at ease. "We'll not
hurt your tom-tit, missus. He has a voice and a beard, and a pipe in the
middle of it like a real man; and by tripes, what there is of him is
worth a dozen of the pot bellies--swelled with importance and ordering
the lash for their betters. He has no weapon with him but his crutch."

When the coach came and the mailbags were rifled, the travellers were
released without further molestation, but Johanna's taste for journeys
was ruined. After that she talked of trips to Sydney, but never took
them. The growing city as well as the mountains dropped out of bounds for
her.



CHAPTER IX


Delacy's grand artificial limb was a peg with a socket attached by straps
to the waist. He became nimble with it on practice, and Doogoolook's wide
laughter full of teeth, but empty of sound, conveyed that Danny and the
brown horse were now both nullah-mundoeys.

The coolness of valleys and streams draped in ferns and shrubs, their
fragrant aromatic purity, still enthralled him. The encircling ramparts
guarded a kingdom, for which he would have forsaken the bread and butter
of home and wife as for an enchantress. The beckoning fastnesses should
now guard twenty or thirty walers sufficiently mature for the Indian
market.

"And how will ye handle them with but one leg?"

"Have I no ingenuity?"

Refreshed by her excursion into the outer world, Johanna now admitted
that there was property in the mountains, but decreed that never again
should Danny traipse off by himself. Therefore, in company with Hannon
and Doogoolook, he set out once more when summer was bold in the land.
Johanna had Maeve and Mrs Harmon, and an artisan, who knew something of
farm work.

Delacy went by Keebah, and Urquhart accompanied him down the precipices.
The mare had to carry him every yard of the way now. He detached the peg
leg lest in the scrabbling and lurching it be smashed against tree or
rock. Regardless of age or sex, Danny's mount was always a "mare". In
this case it was the imported Irish lady of exquisite paces, given him by
Mrs Evans, when her heart had been touched by his infirmity.

"Mules would be fine for this country," said Urquhart.

"Never wan of the unclean beasts would I run on me country. Nature
repudiates such perversion and allows no further issue. That should teach
a civilized man."

Danny uttered no word of repining about his leg, nor suffered any tremor
that its loss made him less a man.

A nest of bulldog ants occupied the floor of the hut. Bats possessed the
rafters. Wombats had burrowed under the wall plates. Kangaroo rats had
snug homes in tussocks around the door step. From one a black snake
issued to his doom in the shape of Doogoolook.

Urquhart tarried to lend a hand and cast an eye on the country beyond
Delacy's. His sons were growing up. "There's little sense to risk bones
raising cattle in these wilds to make the land stink with rendering them
down."

"But faith, a man who cannot look at the future is only a come-day-go-day
contraption."

When those boys whom Johanna was rearing for him would throw their weight
into the scale they would be bound to Burrabinga by firmer considerations
that a paltry wage and rations of beef and flour, sugar, tea, rum and
tobacco.

Nullah-Mundoey's headquarters were in the fields of kangaroo grass, as
high as his withers, on the burned river bank. The cripple had kept the
mob from dispersing and there was a fine display of mares, fillies and
colts.

With a couple of stockmen Delacy began the trapping and branding of
cleanskin cattle which had retreated beyond the domain of the horses. His
brand and his earmarks were put on all cattle caught. Colts and fillies
had their baptism. Horses with other brands were advertised.

Doogoolook was becoming a marvellous horseman and stockman, and yokels
who came to Burrabinga had to follow his lead. That of Danny was hardly
less daring. He rode the gorges at a furious pace, hallo-ing like a
demon, depending on the "mare". Mind transformed horse and rider. Danny
never fell from the horse nor the horse under him. He raged with
industry from day-break and until long after night fell by the light of
fires in the cavernous hearth. He struggled for money for extra labour,
to put up adequate yards and huts, and above all to make a cutting
around the worst pinches. It was almost more than could be expected of
horses to traverse the precipices when laden. "But with the pinches
reduced, sure an old woman in a donkey cart would have no distress in
flipping back and forth."

Danny classified the live stock. Horses were taken to Bewuck, and Moore's
breakers engaged to prepare them as cavalry chargers. Distraught heifers
and steers went down the river to be tamed. "Och, dragging the life out
of ye'rself and no peace to anny one else," said Johanna.

"What else can a man do for an honest indipindence in a raw country with
no capital but his hands?"

"There's plenty that don't drive themselves so extremely."

"Plenty of vaygabonds like the cattle spoilers of old." Danny waved his
pipe towards squatters; men who had started with capital and whose
fortunes were enlarging like snowballs. "Some of those who would have
driven me off if they could."

"'Tis not in ye to be rich. The rich have more hard-fistedness. And ye
bullock everything ye'rself, and wan man power can't extind. The great
succeeders put other fellows to work for them while they reap the
spoils."

Danny was a pioneer of Australian democracy in its levelling-aspects,
which later socio-economists were to discredit as obstructing to
intellectual progress.

The marriage had shaken down. Johanna now saw Danny and it for what they
were. Danny, in the way of many spouses, had to take adventures of the
spirit without his wife, but he valued her as a nest with eggs in it at
the base of his fortune, while he experimented with the superstructure.
The mountains were his aisling, his Dark Rosaleen. Not that this was a
conscious indulgence, the physical campaign left no time for
introspection nor even for sentiment, until he came to be accounted
childish with age, but he faced the ranges with unabating zest. Arrived
there he had the satisfaction of a bandit in retreat, only that Delacy
had no strain of the outlaw ii him. He was civilized.

The return of the blacks one summer, after two years' absence, was
heralded by the unease of the cattle, which were driven away to safety.
The aborigines' rights as ground landlords in the Burrabinga kingdom were
respected by the payment of two beasts. No one connected with Delacy
would have dared to "disrespect" a gin.

Two chiefs came to the hut and demanded Doogoolook. "I've often wondered
that the wild taste has not come on him," said Delacy to Hannon.

Doogoolook went with his people. The alternative was death. Danny
conveyed that his ward was entitled to a horse, blankets, etc., but this
was disregarded. Danny could not be sure that Doogoolook was happy in
departure, and in the days that followed sorely missed one whom he
discovered to have been as useful as two newly-imported whites. "Sure,
he's one of the whitest men I ever knew."

Two months later he saw a form emerge from the tall trees across the
river, and welcomed the returning Doogoolook. He had attained his
manhood; he pointed to tangible evidence. He was now entitled to marry,
but the gins apportioned to him were the worse for wear, so he had been
allowed to return, perhaps because of his muteness and Delacy's early
rescue of him. The facts are not recorded. No aurist ever tried to decide
whether Doogoolook's muteness was the result of destroyed vocal chords,
or merely of shock.

Delacy's second decade of colonizing found him strenuously engaged with
his two homes. New South Wales had settled down to a sedate tempo, when
suddenly the composition of life in the new continent blew up over night.



CHAPTER X


Gold! Gold!

Delirium set in and prevailed. From Van Diemen's Land to Moreton Bay the
population skedaddled. Free workers set off as one man. Others absconded.
Sailors deserted. Ships lay empty in port. Squatters, professional men,
clerks, ploughmen, shepherds, stockmen--masters and men alike--forsook
employment and tamily. The wise and the silly, the strong and the weak,
the old and the young, the comfortably placed and the destitute, the good
and the bad, the rough and the gentle scurried in the direction of
Bathurst where it was rumoured that gold, man's most permanent god, his
ablest and least changeable friend, was to be picked up from the surface
of the earth.

From Sydney to Bathurst the camp fires blazed in a chain by night. The
road was often a river of mud through which, by day, struggled a
nondescript collection of humanity, burdened with nothing or anything
from a garden fork to a compass. It was then that the Australian learned
to roll a swag and pad the track hungry and cold, sweating or
fly-tormented in a strange and lonely land.

Gold! Gold!

Richer discoveries in the new Colony of Victoria resulted in wilder and
bigger rushes there.

Tales of gold went across the seas. Ships crowded south packed with
diggers. Among them were heirs and cadets of lordly houses, desperadoes
from many nations, skilled diggers from California, poets, callow
professors from Germany, auctioneers, cheap Johns, impostors in rich
release. People ran with greater alacrity than if St Gabriel had
proclaimed an authentic heaven wide open.

Gold! Gold!

Gold trickled across counters from leather pouches and tinder boxes. It
was carried in belts and small bottles and dusty tins.

On the sheep stations adjoining Bewuck the merinos were abandoned to scab
and footrot and dingoes. Delacy himself, could no more resist such a call
to adventure than the magpies the resurgence of spring. Johanna fought
against the first rushes in New South Wales with barbed shafts.

"An old married man! Ye with wan leg already gone in ye'r brave
adventuring! Ye, that could have nearly been a grandfather had ye been a
proper father, and not distressed me by ye'r capers."

It would have taken the Bull of Cooley to hold him from Bendigo and
Ballarat. "Sure, I may as well go where there's promise. I can' be
running the whole country with meself and Hannon alone. I might search
the world with a small tooth comb for another chance of plucking up gold
from the roots of the grass."

"Ah, scatteration! When ye've dragged ye'rself to pieces to establish the
horses and cattle at Burrabinga, and a depot and a home here, why leave
everything to the native dogs? Ye'r stock unbranded for those who like to
stick a mark on them."

"Och, every one will be running with me. The young stock will stay with
their dams. And to think, me brave Johanna, if I brought you a fortune!"

"Ye'll more like be bringing me something worse than the wooden leg. How
could ye work a claim on wan leg?"

"Couldn't I lepp over manny of them that has four, when I set me moind?
Sure, it's all in the moind."

Urquhart, with ten children, and whom Johanna had thought a model of
common sense, announced his intention of accompanying Delacy. Johanna was
defeated, but luckily Hannon and Doogoolook stood by her. There was also
a mild old poodle of an English gentleman as tutor. Johanna had to resign
herself to observing the neglect of the substance for the chase of the
shadow, but Danny was no longer a hero. She was seasoned to his sorties.
His absences were a relief.

The hour came for him to mount the mare, a good animal in her prime.
Attendant upon her were two able colts packed with digging and other
gear, and merchandise, including tobacco. Johanna accompanied him as far
as the sliprails beyond the household premises. From there she turned
back to set her will on Bewuck.

She desired education for her children. Hitherto they had had only
scrappy lessons by those ill-designed to impart their knowledge. Danny
was accustomed to suspend lessons if tutor and pupils could forward the
farm work.

Johanna prepared to send Della, now twelve, to Sydney to a boarding
school nominated by Mr Moore. He was going clown and took charge of the
girl and paid her fare. Johanna held her breath about such a daring step,
but if Danny was for ever to be capering about the country, leaving her
no better situated than a widow, and in some ways worse, she must do
something for her daughters. She was tempted to send them to a convent,
but resisted because the Roman Catholic creed and the brogue would be
detrimental socially, and they must acquire refinement and
accomplishments to the end of securing husbands with civilized homes in
Sydney. Her desire was to rescue her daughters from some of her own
hardships and heartbreaks in "this blackfellow pioneering, with me life
in me hand and me heart in me mouth from wan unholy terror after the
other".

It was a year of floods. Every stream Delacy and Urquhart met was a
banker. Several had to be swum at the risk of life. How Delacy swam the
Yackandandah on the tail of the mare, and smashed his wooden leg in the
passage, was one of his staple anecdotes when old, and swimming the
Yackandandah was a byword with his descendants.

Urquhart lost a horse in the Campaspe. They had to camp in their wet
clothes several times, and without a fire, because their tinder was wet.
They were also without food for forty-eight hours, on two stretches,
until they reached some lonely shepherd's hut. At one they were offered
£3 per hundred to shear sheep, as all the men had deserted for the gold
fields. They refused this to haste to fortune and the livelier adventures
which have but lately receded from Australia's pioneering scene, and
which are recorded in the yellowing newspapers and in many a romance of
the time, or in those since constructed with varying accuracy. They were
arduous rough experiences, sometimes dangerous, and more coarsening than
romantic, in aggressively democratic, not to say familiar association
with bogus lords and parsons, soothsayers, table-rappers, medical quacks,
harridans and strumpets, sleight-of-hand artists of exceptional daring
and great diversity, audacious swindlers, bushrangers and other
criminals--a hodge-podge savingly salted with men of grit and resource,
and women of unconquerable endurance and respectability.

Delacy and Urquhart were robbed of their first £100 by a third mate,
while asleep. Years later they learned that he was blown to pieces in a
mine in Queensland. They were stuck-up by the notorious Black Douglas and
his gang, and were triumphant that it was so soon following the first
robbery that they had not an ounce of gold between them. Danny had one
promising alluvial claim but was too slap-dash to win the good of it, and
his leg hampered him in shaft sinking.

Homes and families at length became enticing to both men. Johanna's
indifference concerning Danny's absence helped to draw his thoughts to
the Murrumbidgee. Urquhart postulated that with the rise in stock, they
were risking the loss of certain prosperity in mere gambling. Live stock
would not include so many "shicers" if one were wary of "shysters".
Neither had any affinity with the lawless elements and were lucky in
withdrawing before rebellion culminated in the Eureka Stockade.


One evening at afterglow the dogs heard the jingle of hobble-chains and
quart-pot and gave tongue. The family ran out, saw the silhouette on the
dazzling skyline and answered Danny's hail. He dismounted on a mended peg
and shouted for each member of his family. "Wait till I show you what I
have brought."

"I can see the owld pipe ye haven't lost this time. Has it taken root
entirely? Maybe I should be thankful that it's wan leg ye still have
intact."

Danny went inside, for the moment he did not miss Della. He was told that
one of his colts sold on the diggings had reached home ahead of him. He
produced his nuggets. Johanna accepted several as keepsakes, but
maintained an aloof manner. Women were compelled to be subservient, an
attitude in which Johanna had been racially bent from the days of Brehon
law, but, psychologically, the Danny who had lured her over the seas was
dead. She was now aware that she was wedded to an insignificant fellow,
eccentric because of his abnormal honesty, and incapable of providing the
refinement and elegancies she adored.

The moment came when Della's absence had to be explained. Johanna made
her plunge, her pulse not so confident as her mien. Danny was astonished.

"Is at a school-mistress you are making of her? Aren't there husbands
enough in a country crying out for population?"

"What kind of husbands for those who know nothing but to run after
turkeys and chase crows? They'll be on the level of barefooted sluts from
the bothies around Ennis, unless I contrive for them to see something
different. If it was not for Cooley Hall in me own remimbrance, 'tis
often I'd wonder was I annything but wan of the savages that roam in a
tribe."

"You should have consulted me."

"Consult the wind, and ye away with it!" Johanna threw up her chin. "How
did I know if ye'd ever return, or return with ye'r wits; and me
daughters running to seed."

"Maybe you did right," temporized Danny. "Sure, I'll have the means
hereafter to put things to right, and you'll be riding in your carriage
before long, me brave Johanna."

Flaying gained the ascendancy, she continued, "And me beautiful son, he
must be a gentleman, with learning more than lie can accumulate from a
rouseabout."

"We'll consider all these things at the proper time."

Bewuck had prospered under Johanna. Wheat, also hay, hides and butter had
soared to a fabulous price. There was a ready market for eggs and
poultry. Even feathers were saleable. Johanna had money to send her
children to school. Danny was not so great a hero by comparison.
Nevertheless he had yarns of the Yackandandah, of the new Colony of
Victoria, of the bustling city of Melbourne, alive with rich diggers and
their ladies, of men lighting their pipes with bank notes and shoeing
their horses with gold. He had sufficient currency to renew leases at
Burrabinga, to buy more acres around Bewuck, and make additions to the
homestead.

Johanna did not allow her advantage to slip. Robert and Honoria must also
go to school in Sydney. Danny gave his consent vaguely, and as a sop
because he was wild to be away with stockmen to collect cattle, now worth
as much as £20 per head, and all the world was demanding horses. He was
also eager to retreat to Burrabinga because of another gift he had
brought from the diggings, and which he wished to keep from Johanna as
long as possible: a taste for rum. This had grown during long shifts of
standing to the waist in cold water until dysentery became prevalent and
rum the universal panacea, as well as a disinfectant for polluted
drinking water. At Burrabinga be would be able to enjoy his grog, and
would no longer refuse his employee's invitations to drink with them.
However, he never tippled to the deterioration of his energy and
industry.

Having his consent to the education of Robert and Honoria, Johanna
cheerfully bade him go. He stipulated that the other two boys should be
left to him to rear to pastoral pursuits. For the present they remained
with the new London misfit in the schoolhouse beside the bunyip hole.

The ridges of Delacy's territory, and for eighty or a hundred miles
surrounding it, were alive with descendants of animals that had early
been driven off by the blacks from the overlanders' route. In fenceless
days many a beast sought a mate and founded a community in the wilds. In
the withering droughts they migrated from the parched plains to the
fountful hills; And from the head of the Murray to Monaro, to Bathurst
and New England, they mightily increased, sometimes with the aid of
well-bred runaways. During years when cattle had been unsaleable they
remained on the runs until they died of old age.

Delacy erected trap yards and drafting crushes. Money flowed from effort.
Urquhart, himself a straight man, deplored Danny's honesty as extreme,
because he refused to confiscate the horses and cattle that drifted to
Burrabinga. To Urquhart's remonstrance he would say, "Am I a horse and
cattle thief? Sure, weren't min hanged in the old country for lifting a
sheep, and am I to risk destroying me character? You can be a lifetime
building a good character and lose it in twenty-four hours by a single
act of foolishness."

His truthfulness was more than that demanded by common sense. Not another
such horse-toper was known from the Murrumbidgee to the Lachlan. When
vending he declared the blemishes of his stock before reciting their
excellencies. This eccentricity had some reward. People in Sydney sent to
him for horses. Novices in buying came to him because he could be
trusted. He did not, however, grow as rich as some of his neighbours.

Wealth was not to be wrested from the land without more avarice than
Delacy had. The earth has her lean seasons of droughts or plagues, or her
times of surplus when demand hangs slack. There were dingoes and disease,
and as live stock rose in value with the discovery of gold, bushranging
and cattle- and horse-duffing became staple industries in the wilds of
Monaro. Danny was a heavy loser to thieves who settled around him.

The family wanted more land at Bewuck, with the mountains as an outlet,
but Danny still hoped to persuade Johanna to live at made cuttings around
the worst pinches. Notwithstanding, there was money to bank, and banks of
re-established reputations to engulf Johanna's hoards. She hated to
surrender her currency, and Danny failed to extend her partnership to his
cheque book. Women's part in the struggle was accepted as their unpaid
duty--Burrabinga. He put up an abode to replace the burned hut, and by
women as well as men.

The making a gentleman of Robert, as well as the polishing of Della and
Honoria, was expensive, and Delacy was constantly in need of capital.

Robert was the pride of Johanna's heart, and it was her secret ambition
that he might take to scholarship, and even return to Ireland and become
a priest. He favoured his mother in features. He had her keen black eyes
and her nose--the nose of an emperor. He needed it at college when he
found himself in a class of select young gentlemen, much his junior in
years, but so far in advance in their studies that they ridiculed him as
a dunce and a country lout. He had neither wealth nor any connections,
nor was he fashioned to pound his way. Taller than his father, he had the
willowy grace that distinguishes the Delacy descendants to this day, and
the floss silk black hair, the delicate Delacy hands with the filbert
nails.

No word of the agonizing humiliation of his first months escaped into his
home letters, because the family were so sure that he was on a superior
and enviable plane of existence. Nor would he admit defeat while Della
could remain at her exclusive school. He had a weapon in his tongue and
found his feet as soon as his prowess with horses earned him the
protection of a leading boy whose father kept riding and carriage horses.
His mother's generous response to his secret requests for money provided
a wardrobe which also helped him to victory.


His brothers followed a different routine. On harvest days they were
hullabalooed from bed before dawn, and Harry was so drowsy that he
sometimes fell asleep in the wallaby hole in the log fence on his way to
bind sheaves, and would not be found until the other workers were
returning to dinner at noon. Danny had no mercy on these two children. He
had none on himself. He took credit that he did not ask the meanest
convict to do what he would not do himself, a procedure which with time
has developed a national attitude of hostility toward special rewards for
any outsize talent but that of money-making. It was not the procedure to
make Delacy a wealthy overlord nor to hold the respect of the servile,
who are refreshed by worship of a financial superior, and who can
recognize no other. Delacy's superiority was of that quality which is
derided, or at best tolerated as eccentricity in a private person, and
which, in those dedicated to public service, is violently opposed until
it succeeds, and which is posthumously acknowledged by the effigies which
make disfiguring bird-roosts in public places.


The education of William and Harry was of the sketchiest, though Danny,
son of a schoolmaster, considered tutors indispensable. There was always
a sprig of sere leaf of the British upper middle class in the
school-house in the orchard. Generally he would be the product of Public
School or University, with classic knowledge useless to himself and
unwanted by boys destined for the land, but which was pleasant to Delacy
in conversation, to which he clung as a mental necessity as stubbornly as
his wife clung to elegancies. Some of these tutors were victims of
alcohol; all had some cardinal defect due to which they had been
jettisoned by their families. Most had as little facility in imparting
their superfluous knowledge as they had in enforcing discipline. School
hours were relegated to winter nights or wet days, when an hour or two
would be set apart for lessons by the light of a slush lamp. The walls
had wide cracks that let in the breeze; the boys were more concerned with
the possums that came in between the wall-plate and the bark roof, than
with the Wars of the Roses or Greek mythology, though Henry VIII was of
masculine interest. The hours were further curtailed by slyly turning on
the clock or by inveigling a nostalgic exile to read national ballads.

The boys were tired and sleepy, whether the harvest were ripe or only
sprouting. Their evening meal--mostly of salt beef and potatoes--was
delayed until they shot a minimum of sixteen possums each. The possums
came at dusk from the pipy trees near by to feast on the luscious
imported wheat so conveniently set in their habitat. The boys had to be
quick or the marsupials scaled out of gunshot. In the phrase of the day
the eucalypts took two men and a boy to see to the top of them.

The pelts had to be skinned and pegged out with hundreds of fine nails on
logs or walls, but Johanna would not let them encroach on places adorned
with the first "kag" of green paint, or its successors. Then came the
tanning and sewing of skins into rugs on winter nights, by the light of
big fires. Each sewer was rewarded by the price of a rug. Some of the
best brought £5--a big sum when minors commonly worked for their fathers
without wages.

Sometimes a tutor would do his duty during the quarter leading up to
pay-day, because in grotesque surroundings there was more salt in
occupation than in idleness. Thus, despite interruptions and recreations,
William and Harry had a little reading, writing and "ciphering", and were
literate for their day. Harry accumulated stores of poetry to furnish his
isolation and nourish his spirit. Old expirees, casual labour,
contributed tales that had descended from the seanachies and bards of
Tara's zenith, and earlier. Some were familiar with stories of Cormac
MacArt, the great king, grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles, and son
of Art the Lonely, whose reign was full of plenty and such honesty that
there was no need to guard flocks or to bolt doors. Stories from Gaelic
legendary found fresh voice to the song of the Murrumbidgee and disclosed
a glint of the glories of the Ard-Rights of Eirinn and of the grand feis.
The deeds of the Fianna and their immortal hounds, the high test of
learning which they had to reach, as well as those other woodcraft tests,
which young Harry could emulate, were especially inspiring. The tales
lost none of their spell in the garbling, tales of Nial of the Nine
Hostages; tales told originally by Oisin, son of the chief bard of Fian,
and which, though accounted pagan, could charm the tired Patrick himself;
tales which time could not extirpate and which in the language of
would-be conquerors still spring fragrant and poetic from the soil of
Ireland.

Harry, spellbound beside the roaring log fires, gave the honour anciently
due to poets to their tales. Endowed with imagination, he translated
dream people to his native forests. They existed for him in the voices of
river, wind and rain, or stood in the shadows beyond the firelight--a
company of friends that made him love the night. They were of his inner
life which he hid from the profane. Oh, that he could be a seanachie and
recite the deeds of noble men, and himself attain nobility!

The boys were fortunate in Maeve and Doogoolook, who educated them to
their environment. Saved by Danny from superstition, they had no fear of
the bunyip, and the area had no other terrors. Before he was eight Harry
could swim like a binghi. A favourite sport with him and William was to
dive towards the middle of the hole in the hope of routing the bunyip* on
to the bank. The bunyip had a strong personality during his reign.
William and Harry and another younger friend all but saw him one morning.

[* The oldest inhabitants of the district are agreed that a bunyip
existed and that he was probably a large otter, shy and now extinct; or,
that when the rivers remained undisturbed, except occasionally in summer
by the blacks, a few seals may have worked their way all the thousands of
miles inland from the Bight, to remain in exile until they died of old
age.]

They had left the catch of their night lines on the table rocks of the
fish hole while they sought grubs. On returning-they found only the head
of a cod which had weighed about ten pounds, and something, which they
described as the size of a calf, slipping into the water. Cooees brought
Danny and others, and they all saw the undecipherable tracks of an animal
leading from the water to the fish head and back into the water.



CHAPTER XI


The time came when Delacy could put William and Harry to the work of
adults.

A large field of wheat that had escaped smut or rust, was saved by
vigilance from cockatoos by day and marsupials by night. Much hung on the
selling of this grain to a mill at Albury for 17/6, or possibly more, per
bushel, and all was not going well with the harvesting. Hannon, who was
in charge, was beset by cantankerous old lags whose intention was to pick
a quarrel and put the onus of dismissal on the employer. Delacy increased
the ration of grog but this did not pacify them. Hannon trembled lest a
firestick should be put to the garnered stooks.

The climax came when Delacy was rushing the reapers to beat a
thunderstorm. It was as hot as a furnace in the narrow gorge. Flies and
sandy blight increased irritation. Usually the meal was served in two
shifts in the kitchen, but on this day the men were squeezed at one
table, and the reek of dirty sweating bodies, rank tobacco, cabbage and
rum was nauseating to all but the inured. One man was given a seat at a
side table. He tried to start a disturbance by flinging his plate on the
floor and shouting, "I'll not submit to the outrage of being set apart
because of what is past in my life."

Delacy seized the gigantic tin teapot and made towards the man. "Pick up
your good victuals, you vaygabond haythen, or I'll baptize you to me own
taste."

The malcontent, with one glance towards his adversary, who was about half
his weight, six inches shorter, and hopping on a peg leg, fled the
premises for ever, amid the laughter of his fellows.

Johanna was still without her carriage, though Danny now had two drays,
in which the boys were to transport the wheat. They held back on a rising
market until the frosts had come, then Danny escorted them up from the
homestead to the plateau commanding a view of the ranges southward, and
left them to make a daylight start towards that part of the road to Port
Phillip which served the upper reaches of the Riverina.

William Delacy, now nearly seventeen, was of staid dependable character,
and his shoulder had long been pressed to the wheel of responsibility. He
was already clever at training steers, horses and dogs. He worked with
more patience than his father, but with equal noise, and could be heard
admonishing his creatures a mile distant. He had his father's honesty but
was more prosaic, "more practical" said his acquaintances, though Danny
was ultra practical in acting as he preached. William's actions contained
less of the flights of the wild geese of adventure. He thought more of
the immediate return for his enterprises, less of their ultimate concern
with destiny.

Harry, nearly two years younger, was an eager laddie, slender as a wand,
with delicately chiselled features and Danny's blue eyes, with a drop of
Johanna's to deepen them. Never were loins so slim nor backs more flat
than the Delacys', but whereas Johanna and Danny were a doll-like pair,
the men that sprang from them were all tall.

William was conscientious, and Harry squandered himself in the trust
committed to him. William had the best leaders and polers with frisky
characters between. Harry's team was steady throughout. Four or five
mature spares, tame servitors, walked free, and disloyally (to their own
race) horned any youngsters into keeping the pole-chain straight when
timidity or rebellion slewed them from the line. William had been on a
similar trip with Hannon two years earlier and would have been accounted
wanting had he forgotten any turn of the way.

The boys woke to an icy dawn with a wind that would shave a
gooseberry--Harry's words--sweeping full across the plateau from the high
peaks down Monaro way. When they unrolled from their possum rugs beneath
the dray, Harry saw a man taking the hell from his riding horse. A second
man was trying to catch William's. These fillies were the reward of
heroic labour. Danny abhorred the vice of "horsiness" and sold all his
prime geldings, but youth will have its swagger, and these fillies were
the apple of the boys' eyes.

Harry rushed towards the robber yelling language that his mother would
have asserted was unknown to him. He kicked the man's shins wildly
despite a couple of holsters in his belt. With similar recklessness,
William ran to rescue his idol. Both lads had Danny's fearlessness.

"You fine young pup! You---fool! I might have put a bullet in you." Harry
was small for his years, he looked childish. The robber remained
good-humoured because his Wellingtons had protected his shins.

"You can't have my filly," screeched Harry, who had not been taught to
modulate his voice.

"How are you going to stop me?"

"I'll soon show you!" The lad seized his bridle and flung the reins over
the filly's ears in such a pelter that the sudden up-jerk of her head
sent him sprawling in the swamps. Whack! He was a comical spectacle, feet
in air, the rearing filly above him. The bushranger guffawed. The boy was
unarmed, his work-marred hands as delicate as a girl's. A kick would have
thrown him into the middle of the coming week. He sprang up dripping,
frozen, and foolish, but undaunted.

"Hold on," said the man. "If you had your paddy under control, you'd be
gamer still, but you'll never make a pug."

Harry's sensitive features betrayed a struggle to hold back tears.
William had reached his horse ahead of the other thief, and now cantered
up to see what was happening to Harry.

"Are you unarmed, too?"

"Why should I be armed in a free country?" countered William. He
recognized the men from descriptions, and was prepared for the loss of
both horses.

"This ---- young pup is as fresh as a gander," remarked the leader. "Are you
going to enter the fillies for the gents' races at Bong Bong?
Nullah-Mundoeys, ain't they?"

"Yes," replied Harry, to whom hope suddenly returned. "They're out of
Cornet mares by Knobkerrie, and he was by Shillelagh out of Miss
Nullah-Mundoey, and she was by Whipstick, and then came the original
Nullah-Mundoey."

"Good iron! I don't rob little boys, not when they've been flung by old
fearless Danny of the mountains. He parades about unarmed. Tell your old
man he's flung a couple of pups as game as himself, and that it was Clark
said it. You can keep your mokes. I'll pick up a couple of the same breed
from them who don't deserve them."

The boys were elated by this encounter. It lent adventure to their
passage as they camped in frost or rain and lived on damper and salt
junk, cooked by themselves at night. They had no warm clothing. A poncho
of sailcloth protected them from water or wind, as, unconscious of
hardship, they thrashed their way in mud or dust, with bullocks that grew
tender around the necks and sore-footed as they endured their share of
the bovine torture which advanced Australian colonization. Harry survived
whooping cough, his vocal convulsions having given more amusement than
concern to his fellow travellers.

While the boys were toiling with the drays, Danny went to the Township to
take a pack load of skins and to call at the post office During Robert's
stay in Sydney, his mother insisted upon letters being collected at least
once a month. A tutor was to be selected from Hennessy's hotel, where
there were generally remittance men open for such a post. The clergyman
who examined the boys' educational progress, reported that Harry was
backward, so he was to renew his studies during the winter nights when he
returned with the teams.

Danny chose a soft young fellow in the hotel yard, where he also became
enamoured of a carriage. A queer shingle of military aristocracy who had
come to inspect the country, had been vanquished by his cardinal enemy,
and liquidated his carriage and four horses. The publican offered the
vehicle to Danny, half in jest.

Here was the carriage which had been promised to Johanna in the coomb
near her old home. She had given up riding, and complained of being a
prisoner at Bewuck. Danny decided to take the vehicle home that day. All
the talent of the Township, from masters to tag-rag and bobtail,
collected to grin at the odd team which was yoked to it, two heavyish
pack-horses on the pole and two blood saddle mares as leaders.

The pub groom put the horses in with unholy glee, and the new owner took
charge. He was neither whip nor horse-trainer, but through inability to
recognize impossibilities, frequently overrode them. The two ladies
Nullah-Mundoey never before had been yoked to anything.

"Be careful! They may go mad when you start," warned a more kindly
onlooker.

"Arran! Why should they? Child's play to what those mares have achieved
and never showed the whites of their eyes."

"Wait till the collars begin to nip them."

"Fearless Danny only needed a carriage to be king of the Murrumbidgee."

There was admiration as well as baiting in the rude sallies.

"Sure he's as big a swell as the best, and honester than all the others
put together, only he's never concerned with howldin' on to schnobbery,"
said the publican, one Hennessy, a big fat man of Danny's age. He owned
the grand hotel and had lately risen to it from a sly grog shop, which,
before hotels were licensed, he had kept under cover of the little
general store, from which the Township had been hatched as from an egg.

The chorus increased. As the yapping of curs Delacy regarded it, to be
dispersed by his horses' heels in the clatter of his enterprises. Never
was being more indifferent to criticism, and he was as far above
scandal-mongering as a lark's song above a snail's track.

Flowers of originality in eminent men are cherished by the mob as signs
of greatness. Originality in the obscure makes him a butt for lesser
wits. Danny in his loose slops, clumping on his peg, was a leprechaun
figure. He settled his hat full of leaves, with the chin strap jostling
his pipe.

"Taking any passengers?" someone called out.

"Too many jackasses for me to accommodate you all, and I never make
invidious distinctions among me fellow men, but you can draw lots for the
honour of riding with me, and be damned to you." He called for a chair,
which Hennessy himself brought with goodwill. From this Delacy climbed
over the wheel and took the reins. He looked around and saw the tutor.
"Sure, make yourself a place among the saddles inside."

The young man obeyed, reddening like a cherry.

"Lead out the mares till they see what to do," Danny ordered a native
lout, who grinned and remained where he was. He would not align himself
with a butt. Danny caught him a flick with his stockwhip, and cackles
against the lout brought volunteers. The mares, inured to much, found
this too much. They reared into the collars with hysterical desire to
leap over the traces. The men at the bit-rings had sufficient
neighbourliness to act as a brake on Danny's recklessness. A hardy pair
assumed the positions of postillions.

"Leave go now. A sound skelping is the way to dispose a horse to
harness."

A second young man dived into the carriage on top of the tutor.

"Sure, iver since the owld man's daughter came home from boording school
the young feller has been squinting at her," observed Hennessy.

"You owld spalpeens, with your experience to balk at a ladylike
carriage," exclaimed Danny, who had his own way with bolting horses,
proved by experience. With a yell to be heard for a mile in the clear
autumn air, he laid the whip about the leaders. They sprang ahead from
the flaying thong, but the polers' speed was not dangerous. All the
loafers ran to the crest of an eminence. Those with horses rode farther;
not every day was there such a lively clown.

Familiar and deafening advice soon assured Delacy's four-in-hand that
nothing untoward was happening. The polers were winded through being
dragged by the Nullah-Mundoeys. They bowed to domination and hung into
the breeching. Danny's disregard of anything but his purpose had added
another story to the records.

"It won't be a week till he uses the carriage to cart possum skins out of
the mountains," remarked Hennessy.

"I've never seen the beat of him."

"Where did ye iver see his aquil? Whoi, Danny Delacy could tame a woild
elephant, and him naught but a nullah-mundoey himself. Not a fear at all,
anny more than if he was made of injy rubber."

Not at all timid was the young man pulled into the carriage by the tutor,
and who had called to a mate, "Bring my horse when you come."

Gerald Butler, young native squatter, and Walter Dillingham, imported,
had a rough passage among the gear until the mares were encrusted with
sweat and dust and their shoulders were growing tender. One jibbed. Young
Butler revealed himself.

"Wait a moment, Mr Delacy, I'll lead her."

"Did you spring conveniently out of a bush?"

"Out of the carriage. I was one of the jackasses who accepted your
invitation."

"Not so much a jackass, I'm thinking, as the right man in the right
place."

The gratified young man took the mare's bit-ring.

"He's in a more manly situation than his feyther was behind the trees
waiting to see me cattle driven off," thought Delacy, and did not allow
the father's character to prejudice him against the son. "Where's me
other brave warrior?" he shouted. "Jump out, unless you're glued to the
seat, and put a boulder to the wheel."

The man put a stone in front of the back wheel, on to which, however, the
carriage backed and saved him from ridicule as a new chum.

The mare continued to jib. She had been trained to tow people up hills,
so they tied her tail to the swingle-bar and she pulled thus with spirit
to the end of the day, when they descended to the homestead. Danny hacked
down a tree and lashed it to the back axle. With stirrup leathers, Butler
and the pop-eyed tutor held on to the upper side to prevent capsize. The
dogs brought out the family.

"A carriage," cried Jane Hannon.

"Father is driving," said Maeve.

"He's got himself killed again in some new way," moaned Johanna.

"How could he be killed and driving too?" demanded Della. "Gerry Butler
and a strange young man," announced Maeve.

Della withdrew to re-arrange herself. Gerald Butler was the most comely
of the Murrumbidgee callers.

"Where are you, me brave Johanna?" shouted Danny. "Come, see the
carriage. Now you can drive around in comfort when you have the moind."
He was at the foot of the descent across the cultivation paddock. Young
Butler was detaching the drag, while the tutor was investigating the
damage done to his hands.

"Wan of these days 'tis a circus in full cry ye'll be bringing me, and ye
the clown all complete in it," Johanna called with mixed emotions. A real
carriage was exciting when her circle had not yet achieved spring carts,
but some little trap would have been more manageable. Danny had surpassed
himself this time, so he took his pipe from its fastnesses to kiss his
wife.

"Sure, ye're getting to smell like a hogshead as well as a tobacco kag,"
she complained.

"I've had no more than a taggeen, and it a day past. I've brought a young
man--sure, I forgot to inquire your name. He can bring Harry on and lend
a hand when necessary."

"The carriage certainly makes you the first lady in the district, Mrs
Delacy," said Butler, giving her good evening.

The vehicle was placed behind the hen house and protected by a tarpaulin
until a house of its own could be built.


Six weeks later Harry and William returned from the wheat expedition,
William unkempt and aged for his years, Harry looking like an ill-treated
orphan, but swaggering manfully and unaware that the task had been above
his years and strength. Their exploit was soon dimmed by the home-coming
of Robert, his education completed. Johanna's idea that her darling could
ever be a student would have convulsed his teachers. Nevertheless, he had
imbibed from his Sydney sojourn sufficient to gain the ascendancy in his
family. Harry basked in his brother's glory.

Harry had his father's tendencies, and, according to William, was "the
damnedest fool that ever drew breath". Notwithstanding this plain speech,
Harry was fond of William for his underlying kindliness, and because they
both had inherited Danny's principle, and lacked respect for any but
honest men.

Robert's qualities were not defeated by gauche self-consciousness. At
bottom he was perhaps the least generous of the brothers, the least
affectionate, but he was a better politician than either, and there were
perquisites in cultivating the affections of others--even brothers. He
thought Harry a greater fool than did William, but instead of mentioning
it so bluntly made capital of Harry's romantic attitude towards him and
life. Robert was eighteen, the age at which his father had married. Only
a suggestion of beard smutted his lip, but he shaved with ostentation. He
could swagger with style, an art denied to William. He was lithe and a
light-weight despite his seventy-two inches and well-squared shoulders.
The Delacys were race horses rather than cobs, of lean and wiry staying
powers through Danny's transmitted lung capacity and hardy rearing.

There Robert's resemblance to his father and brothers ended. He had more
qualities than they for rising to eminence. He could enlist others. He
had plausible reasons for riding the best horses and undertaking the
pleasantest jobs. He remained the darling of his mother's heart. His
manners were pleasing after what she had endured from rough employees and
the casual Danny. She considered Robert fit to mate with the Governor's
daughter.

The wheat money and Robert's homecoming helped Danny's determination to
settle in the mountains. The deciding factor rankled. During the winter
he had come home from the Township the worse for liquor. His babble had
wearied Johanna. He was now forty-six and she forty-seven years old. Her
urge for man-flesh had dulled. She craved peace. Years since, she had had
to relinquish her day-dream of returning in affluence to the people of
her girlhood. She saw Danny as an insignificant, ineffectual old man,
hopping on one leg. His once gallant daring now seemed foolhardiness.
Tippling made him insupportable. She had outgrown or outworn him and was
as careless of his feelings as though oblivious to them.

"Ye'r a black-jack and tobacco kag combined, and I have no taste for
sleeping with such. I'll make ye a bed in the ind room," she said.

For a moment Danny felt old and defeated. He became aware that he was a
cripple. He looked in the glass for the first time in years and was not
reassured by the unclassical features ambushed in beard, from which a
pipe protruded like an obelisk. The pipe was rank, he decided, and threw
it from him. He picked it up again helplessly. It had become part of him.

"I am an old tobacco kag and a rum jar," he murmured in the smallest
voice he had ever employed, facing truth as was his wont. He could have
reduced Johanna to obedience. The community was behind him, including the
Church, and women themselves, but Daniel Brian Robert M. Delacy was
gallant. He had been too active for introspection, but he thought now in
swift impressionistic style. He decided that Johanna was a trifle
"touched". She had been overstrained by what she had undergone at the
time of the fire and the death of Kathleen Moyna. She would recover.

No parallel case was known to him. There were women who had cut the
painter because they were "loose", or because the husbands were
recognizedly unbearable. In either case the odium was crushing. There
were milder cases in which the woman's health was a factor, but Danny
could not cover his situation by muttering about Johanna's health while
she was announcing that she had never been better in her life. She
remained casual and assured in a practical piece of feminism, which, as
pioneering, eclipsed her achievements in other fields.

Her dumbfounding attitude drove Danny to the Township to a tailor--an
emancipist settled there. He ordered a suit "fit for a modest gentleman".
He bought also a gentleman's hat, and had a boot made for his delicate
foot. When the outfit was ready he rode home in it. The result was
reducing. His head seemed to have shrunk in a hat of normal size without
the gum leaves.

Johanna was convulsed. "Sure, ye've shrunk back to childhood ahead of
time. What has come to ye? Ye look like Harry in a false beard."

Danny murmured concerning the need of a suit when he sat on the jury. A
big brooch remained forgotten in the pocket of the waistcoat. He bawled
an order to put the horses in over night in readiness for big doings, and
bustled in and out of store and harness room until a late hour. A
civilizable being in a race largely composed of anthropoids--that was his
only demonstration.

Sophistry supervened to comfort him. Johanna herself would lose socially
by her untoward conduct. His absence at Burrabinga would defeat the
curious.



CHAPTER XII


If the withdrawal of land grants in 'thirty-one was manipulated by those
with capital and influence, the Robertson and Duffy Acts redressed the
grievance thirty years later in New South Wales and Victoria. The small
man was given his chance. The free selectors closer-settled the vast
empty squattages and penetrated even to Delacy's province. The
inexperienced were often to lose their all and abandon their nests in the
wilderness; some were to be squeezed out by the big squatters; others
were to harry the flanks of the squatters and drive profitable bargains;
more were to establish desirable estates.

Delacy applied for blocks at strategic points for himself and sons. To
fulfil the regulations he engaged a man to build huts. To employ
substitutes was against the Delacy principle, but "dummying" became an
avocation, and through this Delacy added to his retainers.

One day a forbidding looking man of fifty appeared at Bewuck and called
Delacy down below the pigsty. This was the man whom the Fullwoods and
Butlers had set to the work of eating Delacy out in the beginning. He
averred now that Delacy was the only white man he had ever met, and
offered himself as a dummy to secure part of Burrabinga run.

"You would be more congenially suited at that with wan of your owld
friends, Butler or Fullwood," said Delacy.

O'Neill then threw himself on Delacy's mercy. It was difficult for him to
find employment because of his bad name as an old lag who also had been
colonially convicted. His early patrons dared not employ him; they had to
be more careful of their respectability. O'Neill had been sent from
Ireland for some act of just rebellion, but had done fifteen years in New
South Wales for "d work wid a horse". To one who had gibed at him as a
horse thief, he replied scornfully, "Never in me loife had I anny
timptation to another man's goods. Moind ye'r own step."

Rumour fitted to him the case of a man of violent temper at Liverpool,
enamoured of a girl who played with him. In days when horses were rare,
and he a ticket-of-leaver, O'Neill rode as a gentleman's trainer. Pretty
Kitty Magee led him on shamelessly, and like Young Lochinvar, he one day
invited her to his croupe. Kitty dissolved in giggles.

"Since last I was talking with ye, I've been promised a carriage and
pair."

At that O'Neill spurred his horse on to her. She was crippled.


Delacy saw in the Free Selection Act an opportunity for the outcast to
re-establish himself on a horse camp south from Burrabinga. Delacy was
nobly forgiving of human mistakes, and no intimation of his ever
confirmed the facts which he had from O'Neill.

"Has he committed anny fresh crime that ye exile him anew?" was Johanna's
question. "The loneliness there would send a man mad."

"Och, he'll come down for rations once a fortnight," said Danny, who
feared not even loneliness, though of all men he was the most sociable.
"Am I not helping him to honest indipindince, opening up fine country for
the generations that come after?"

"The generations won't be much concern of poor old Larry O'Neill, and
there are some not over-joyed by what happens to them in dingo' country."

O'Neill set out with the sawyer-carpenter, the three Delacys, and the
tutor. Doogoolook was to put the finishing touches to his foster
brothers' education as unexcelled bushmen. As an afflicted boy in a
strange civilization, Johanna had depended on him as she could not have
done on a whole white youth. As many another of his race he did not fail
in his trust, and has gone without medal or monument to add to the rich
aura of his incalculable country.

Robert remained at Bewuck to assist Hannon, and Johanna was content that
Danny should take his goslings to the hills, where an arduous life
awaited them. Not only were there encroaching selectors, but bands of
fossickers treated Delacy to a gold-rush at Bullock Gap. Gunyahs and
tents met him on the edge of Burrabinga north when the spring mustering
took him that way. Before many months, however, their occupants
disappeared to a bigger rush on the Eucumbene.

The snow was deep that year on the highlands as early as June, and one
night Delacy was camped in a stringy-bark hut on the deserted goldfield
preparatory to meeting the boys next morning at trap yards fifteen miles
distant. He was snug in his possum rug when aroused by a voice too human
for a dingo. It came nearer. It reached the door of the hut. Delacy arose
and stood on the door log, clearly outlined by the firelight.

"Anny wan there? Is it murder, or what? Speak up!" he bawled.

A foreign voice squeaked, "By Cli, Boss, give 'em lelp?"

A tall form fell at Delacy's feet. He dragged it in as well as he could.
"By damn! Wait till I get me leg."

The firelight revealed a Chinese, whom Delacy drew to the warmth. The
man's extremities were chilblained so Delacy applied neat's-foot, and
tendered damper sopped in hot tea. The stranger then slept from
exhaustion in his host's rug while the host himself lay almost in the
ashes. Delacy had acquired another picturesque associate.

Wong Foo could not be taken to the trap yards next morning. Mongols were
not horsemen. A suffering one on a packsaddle was not practicable. A
man's health was more to Delacy than the capture of a mob of cleanskins.
Explanations were impossible. Delacy lacked savvy in broken language.
With any foreigner he roared ever louder and louder until he was winded
and the victim bewildered. The stranger trusted his rescuer sublimely as
he was put on the mare.

Arrived at the homestead, after a journey difficult for both, Danny
administered the general panacea and bandaged the nipped feet and
fingers. He placed Wong in his own berth, and laid himself on the floor.

"What else would a man do, and calling himself a Christian? No man has
the rights of neighbourliness if he balks at colour, class, or even
character."

The notice on the hut door aroused the curiosity of the other musterers,
and their laughter crackled when later Wong Foo's face looked from their
father's bunk. They had not seen a Chinese so magnificent of pigtail. At
first sight he was as ugly, as non-human as a joss, but Danny insisted,
"He's a whoite man, I predict. He has a foine expression."

"What are you going to do with him?" inquired William. "He'll make a mate
for Doogoolook," piped Harry.

"I turn him over to you. Shall you tie a firestick to his pigtail? Use
your moinds--if you have anny?"

"Oh, hell, I don't know," said William.

"By damn! None of that bad language or I'll take a waddy to you."

During this colloquy Wong Foo beamed upon his hosts.

"At any rate he's a cheerful old cove. He'll be good company," chirped
Harry.

"I reckon he'll be worth his tucker for that," conceded William. "If he's
kept lying around handy, he might come in useful."

Company, entertainment, was almost as prized in solitary days as a good
horse.

"A pity he's not more intelligible," said Danny. "Maybe he's full of
enlightening conversation if we could tap it."

The Oriental mind remained unknown to the Delacys, but legends indicate
that Foo felt himself born again as a blood brother of the family,
consecrated to that best-wearing fabric of the emotions--friendship. The
question of inequality did riot occur to him. How could it in light of
Danny's reception of him? The unique alliance was never spoiled, rooted
as it was in the goodwill, the sterling character of both parties, and
protected by the inability of each to use too searchingly the other's
tongue.

"Missa Delacy belly good man!" Wong would explain. His breeding was so
good that he deferred to his patron as he walked around with him.
Doogoolook, at first suspecting a usurper, walked on the other side of
his foster father, but soon grew friendly, and the inimitable trio was
long a decoration to the district.

"I know," shouted Harry one night, "Wong Foo can drive the carriage you
brought Ma, and Doogoolook can sit beside him to open the gates."

"Small moinds delight in small jokes," said Danny, "but you must be above
catering to them. Get out your hooks now and the tutor can exercise your
mental capacity."

The stranger's feet and fingers quickly healed, and then he did wonderful
things to the unfinished house. He also started a garden. He tried to
explain his need to return to Bullock Gap, but. Danny boomed and boomed
that he would be lost again, and Wong was forced to desist for a time.

A stockman opportunely arrived who had had three years on the diggings
with Chinese, and in pidgin interpreted that Wong was twenty-six years of
age and had come from Canton, the City of Lambs.

"I thought he was a hundred, by Cli!" interposed Harry

"He reckons he's a chemist in his own city," said Aldon, the stockman.

"By damn! He's a man of education, I knew it!" cried Danny.

Having tastes above the coolies who came to the goldfields, Foo desired
to fossick alone on Burrabinga run. Danny suggested other fields as more
lucrative, but the matter was determined for Foo by the nearness of the
Delacys. Foo had left his gear in one of the deserted huts and was sure
he could find it if taken back to Delacy's camp. Danny ordered a second
mare, the most sluggish salt lumper available.

"I never saw a Chow riding," remarked William.

"You can see this wan." said Danny.

Wong Foo would ten thousand times rather have walked, but was too surely
a gentleman to say so. The Delacys rode. He too must ride. There for ever
he renounced peasant pottering with a bamboo pole. With the yokels from
Europe this Asiatic was transformed willy-nilly into a horseman, if not
of one sort, then of another. With much vociferation Danny got his pupil
from a fallen log to the back of the horse.

"He's going pale, by Cli, under the yaller," giggled the boys. Even Danny
was not above laughing, so ridiculous were equestrian ineptitude and
timidity. The rouseabouts and the birds all around chortled deliriously.
Menura across the river mimicked them all impartially. There was
merriment in the taming of a continent where even the birds laughed. The
Oriental conformed by raising a sickly grimace.

Doogoolook rode ahead, turning now and again to show his noiseless grin.
Foo held on to the pommel and lay as flat as he could. His legs dangled
useless as those of a wooden doll. Each time the horse lurched from
Danny's larrups, Wong thought his hour had come, but he was stoically
silent.

Wong selected one of the deserted huts. Delacy had a squatting licence
for that part, and Wong had a miner's right, and thus he was doubly
established.


With the boom in live stock, two young men named Angus came and took up
the station between Keebah and Burrabinga. It was called Birrabee by the
blacks because the sand of the creek was infested with fleas.

"Hasn't it been my ambition to lead the way for population?" observed
Delacy. "And sure, covetousness bursts the bag."

If on the wrong side of matrimony, Delacy was on the top side of the
horse trade. He had been improving his stud for years, and at the time of
Johanna's disturbing action had a champion sire, Bewuck Nullah-Mundoey. A
strain of Arab was evident in his head and the clean muscular barrel, and
in his strength and speed, but the horse was sixteen hands. On the flats
of Burrabinga was a crowd of fillies and colts ripening into walers of
reputation. There was respect for the Nullah-Mundoey blood among spielers
and stockmen.

The last of the tutors went, leaving Harry in possession of his library.
The huts were up on the selections, the new house at the main
homestead--a mansion of four rooms--was completed. Despite hard work,
Danny's mind had been riveted on the provoking forwardness of Johanna in
the hope that during two years her tantrums would have subsided. Bewuck
called. He drafted out the biggest bullocks and maturest walers for
market, and set out to be at home for Christmas.

William and Harry were left at Burrabinga. Doogoolook always attached
himself to Delacy with the surety of the best heeler. "'Twill be easier
to tell the story with Wong as illustration," he explained, and rode out
to Bullock Gap to collect his second gentleman-in-waiting. By this time
Yong could at least mount on a horse, and Delacy had supplied him with
suitable beasts at equitable prices.

Bewuck was to wear a new air to meet him.

He had scarcely been out of sight when Robert assumed charge of his
mother and Hannon. He laughed at the carriage beside the hen house, but
recognized its social possibilities, and began his career as a whip by
training a pair of saddle mares to run in traces. He further set men to
grade the dray track so that the carriage could ascend to the plateau
without overturning. When he was ready, he put Hannon on the box beside
him and drove his mother to the Township.

Then began for Mrs Delacy the nearest approach to happiness she had known
since the illusions of her teens. For nearly thirty years she had been
dragged after Danny's rough-riding kite, she whose ambition was a
conventional city existence. Her soul was sick of colonizing rigours.
Squatting, pioneering, grazing, bushwhacking--settling by any of its
classifications--to her taste was little above bushranging in quality or
status. Danny's democracy was full of trials to her. Coming from the
educated classes in the old country, Delacy was entitled to the best
society the Colony afforded, but he was destitute of social ambition. To
Johanna's irritation he allowed emancipists to climb past him while he
was a brother to any man who cared to use his hospitality. Danny was a
separate soul and too engrossed in the struggle of home-building to
cultivate any society as society per se. The haughtiest and humblest
welcomed him on his sorties in his district, and he called upon all
grades impartially.

Few came to Bewuck, leagues off the main highway. "The raggle-taggle
can't injure me," Johanna used to think, "but 'twill be different when
the girls are ripe to marry."

With Danny risking the necks of his two sons in a wild region, she felt
she had earned the right to Robert and her daughters. Robert was up to
her dearest expectations. His years of schooling in Sydney had made him
as dashing a young man as the ranks of the corn-stalks--or native
born--could show. The business of Bewuck, as distinct from its labour,
fell to him because of his address; he arrogated to himself all
transactions that took him to the Township on horseback instead of with
the pack-horses and bullock drays, and was credited with "having a head
on him".

All the Delacy boys had wit, but Robert had a tip on his tongue to prick
dumber persons to his purpose through fear of ridicule. His gallant
swagger took the eyes of women, and he had enough for all. He did not
discredit the bunyip nor the ghosts in the crossing; he was not himself
free from fear of such things. His mother could now admit her tremors.

The Township had grown with the discovery of gold. There were attractions
for Robert in its hotel parlours, and also in the bedrooms, before he
left his teens. He differed from the others of his name by an embracive
taste in wenches. Those who disliked him--and he had more enemies than
the others put together--said he was a flash fellow, lascivious with
women. Flash was a man's word never used by ladies nor of ladies, though
they might be doubtful, but it fitted Robert in his adolescence. Sly and
uninstructed, he was indebted to servant girls for the most vital
education of his youth, and he shrewdly left others to fight his battles.
His staunchest champion was young Harry.

Robert cultivated his mother. He warmed her lonely heart adrift from
family moorings, and which had never found sanctuary in Danny's
impersonality and selflessness. Handsome and smartly dressed, Robert
renewed her life. His indifference to higher education was forgotten in
the joy of his companionship and protection. It was unthinkable to her
that he should be squandered on some hussy. In the absence of worthy
mates, she cultivated the least unworthy at Glenties and Heulong. She
encouraged Gerald Butler for Della. Old Butler was unequivocally among
the gentry, and his ruthless financial tactics made him prosperous. Della
was rising in the twenties unwed, which surprised her mother, because she
was good-looking and sprightly. Admirers were plentiful, but Della was
inhibited by a love dream dating from her term at school, where she had
become infatuated with a cornet in the --th. He never saw Della except en
masse as the school crocodiled abroad with its instructresses, so he
could not respond, but the image of a smart uniforrn was a fixation in
the heart of the girl from Murrumbidgee solitudes.


Danny and his companions dismounted by the new stables one December day
when the jubilation of birds arose in the orchard, and the voice of the
river and its hamadryads made silvery music in an aromatic world.

"I've come to invite you to the new home, sure, me country seat at
Burrabinga," he said in greeting.

"The Saints preserve us! Ye have a new clown in your circus," exclaimed
Johanna.

Wong Foo bowed and beamed. He had gold in his pockets to be made into
jewellery for the ladies. His hair had been cut in colonial fashion to
mark his adoption by Delacy. Johanna was in high spirits. Some of her
youthful vivacity had revived, but Danny was not sure that she was
welcoming him with open arms.

"Sure, we can't treat Wong as a serf. He will have to sit with us for
meals. He can sleep in the ind room. He's an educated man and a Christian
haythen, if ever there was wan."

There! That would dispose of the end room!

He was astonished by the improvements. Paint brightened doors and gates.
The house had additions. Johanna had a parlour with a carpet and a suite
of the horsehair furniture she had coveted years before. The earthen
floors had all disappeared. Danny y generously admired everything.

When the evening meal was served, Maeve was cooking, while a girl brought
in the dishes. To these had been added a cruet with a dozen bottles and a
set of dish-covers. There was a chiffonier as a substitute for the
sideboard with the foxes' heads at Cooley Hall, and on it were displayed
a toast rack, glasses, and an epergne.

The girl was a shepherd's daughter. Johanna was a disciplinarian in
turning a gurrl into a surrvant. Robert was at the head of the table,
carving in assured style, and at the end of the meal he toyed with a
pencil-case in a topside manner. Danny was proud of the way Della queened
it among the tea cups. He repeated his invitation to Burrabinga.

Johanna laughed. "I'll go up when me carriage can bowl along a proper
road. I've had enough of scrambling into that backward place."

"A couple of accomplished navvies would soon grade the road."

"I'd need evidence, me vehicle not to be bounding like a corruk in a
torrent, with men hanging on to it trying to rescue it from the rocks,
and me rattled about inside like a pea in a pannikin till I had a skin
full of sore bones, if not shattered entirely."

Danny went to Johanna's room at bedtime and remarked conversationally,
"Aren't you a little severe on the girl?"

"A surrvant is better for being kept in her place.

"But what is a servant's place? What is anny .wan's place but what he can
make it?"

"I'm furrm that a surrvant shan't have my place, and me to be waiting on
her." Presently she said. "Ye'r bed is ready for ye in the ind room."

Danny was checkmated. "Wong Foo was to go there."

"Sure, ye insisted that I should accept him as a gintleman and an aquil
at me table. Ye would surprise me if ye would object to his sleeping
across the room from ye."

Daniel Brian Robert M. Delacy could face a charging hull without a
tremor, but Johanna Cooley had the upper hand of him. He could not raise
a clamour in the hearing of Wong Foo, who beamed and beamed. He retired
with his protégé to the end room. He was unable to explain that his wife
was--well, by all the pipers, what was there to explain? His business was
his own, hut, as he snuffed out the light, he hoped that Wong Foo would
think separate apartments the fashion for husbands of the best carat on
the Murrumbidgee.

To disguise Johanna's attitude from himself he was impelled to extra
energy, if that were possible. He quickly discerned that too much time
had been given to elegancies and amenities at the expense of fundamentals
to be profitable, but excused Robert on account of inexperience. Besides,
he was so perfect in his mother's eyes, and so confident, that Danny
hardly knew how to cope with him. He pointed out the top-heaviness of the
youth's management. Robert plausibly agreed, and expressed his intention
of tackling various things immediately. He had done what he could to
arouse his mother. She had been melancholy but now she had an interest in
her house and garden, and visited the neighbours. The novelty of this
bemused Danny for the moment.

"Moi, oh, moi," he murmured, as Johanna's side of the case now came to
him. He felt let-down that she had not confided in him, but, without
rancour, looked inward and blamed himself. His disposition was pure wool
throughout. His brave Johanna must have her desires in the homestead and
in the housekeeping. He would support them. Johanna would by and by
return to normal.

He ordered a holiday to the Township. Johanna, Maeve and Della were to go
inside the carriage. Robert was to drive with Wong beside him. The trip
out of Burrabinga had so wounded Foo that stoicism could not hide his
state. Robert was not brave enough to confess that he had been employing
Hannan as coachman, and Danny's training made him endure the Chinese.

"They'll think he is my footman," he chuckled to his mother. "He can't
talk enough to explain." Robert's Sydney years had partially liberated
him from local opinion. He would go his own way and be damned to the
criticism of the tag-rag--while he did not come to grief.

Danny and Doogoolook capered ahead and democratized the carriage. Danny
could have turned a hearse into a family coach without embarrassment. The
pack-horses and miscellaneous collection of dogs careered ahead into the
backyard of Hennessy's hotel, their advent enlivening the Township.

Robert escorted his mother on his arm across the yard to the entrance
door and thence to the ladies' parlour, winking as he went at the barmaid
and the house girl. Danny had rarely been situated to take Johanna on his
arm. Geography had defeated him. Since the loss of his leg he was no
figure for a pageant of ladies in crinolines, but here was Robert doing
the stylish thing. He was waiting to do it again on the straggling street
as Johanna went to the general store. How happily she bowed and
condescended to the Fullwoods and the Butlers, who also happened to be
in town.

Gerald Butler seemed to spring out of nowhere as he had sprung out of the
carriage on the day of its debut, and offered his arm to Della in
imitation of Robert. Wong curvetted near to Robert as well as his
infirmities permitted. He recognized the leader of the family.

Doogoolook and Maeve were for Danny to escort. "Oh, moi, oh, moi!" he
murmured, wistfulness invading him, but only momentary. He boomed at
Doogoolook. He had a repertory of signs, but in moments of stress could
not contain his voice. He handed sovereigns to all the women. He bought
every one material for an outfit from the store, and ordered an extra keg
of rum for rations.

He and Robert had entertainment in taking Wong to the tailor and the
saddler. Danny gave copious advice, which bewildered Wong, who pointed to
Robert and insisted upon being a copy. What was the good of a flash
turn-out to regale the dingoes at Bullock Gap, Danny boomed, but it was
lost on Wong. He was still young and was having amazing experiences. He
was nearly Robert's height, and was excited by Robert's swagger. He would
have assumed one like it but for the effect of the hard journey. He chose
a showy saddle and Robert was flattered by this imitation.

"They'll think he's my illegitimate brother or uncle when he's fully
rigged," he observed.

"Humph!" said Danny.

Wong's deference to age kept Danny well in the picture too, and Danny was
proud of Robert's style and "the head he had on him", only, when he was
about to project himself upon the stage, Robert would be acting a leading
part so that his father's energy returned upon himself like the wuff from
a slackening sail. He took a number of nobblers that evening and was
excited and loud in political and poetical dissertation.

The hotel room had a large double bed, but Johanna objected to tobacco
and rum as perfumes, and rested on an ottoman and let Danny snore by
himself. He did not snore as a matter of fact. Johanna's contempt sobered
him and he lay awake and planned immediate return to Burrabinga. He had
meant to spend the summer at Bewuck, but now decided that Hannon and
Robert could be left to carry on as before.

At breakfast next morning he said to Della, "Can you be ready to come to
Burrabinga with me and housekeep?"

Gerald Butler looked at Della, so for the effect on him, she said she
would love to go.

"Are you going to drive up, Mr Delacy?" he inquired. "You will need me to
hang on to the vehicle again."

"There's always need for a good man annywhere," said Danny. "Why don't
you take up a run on the other side of me? There's a crowd bound that way
now, and I'd sooner the dayvil I know."

"I shall take a look at it, at any rate," said Gerald.

Johanna believed that marriage was the natural end of women, but was not
disturbed by Della's indifference to her suitors. All the district could
see that she had numerous chances. Johanna defended her with many a quip
when people rallied her on remaining unwed, and had a dream about her
ultimate disposal, which had been transferred from Robert. A handsome
daughter, who could have married well, would be a more desirable bride of
the Church than a disappointed failure.


A week's restraint from riding was necessary for Wong Foo, and when he
was ready to take the track his horse was fitted with the new saddle and
bridle and a gaudy saddle-cloth. Wong had boots and spurs and a town hat,
like Robert's, in which he looked quaint indeed. Johanna had accepted
him. He had done wonders for her garden, and presented her with a set of
earrings and a massive brooch with dangles, which had a cavity for hair
at the back and a frame for a .photo before. "'Twill hold Robert's photo
nicely," said she.

"Better have Wong's hair at the back," suggested Robert, which shocked
and delighted his mother.

Della was relieved to be going to Burrabinga. Inquiries as to whether she
intended Honoria to outstrip her were not enough to drive her into
marriage without love, but she would he glad to escape them. Her mother
was acquiescent. Della would mature safely at Burrabinga, and Honoria
would be home from Sydney at Easter. Johanna insisted that Bella
Rafferty, the girl she had trained, should go with Della.

"She must have wan of her own sex, not to be imprisoned in that lost hole
with only a black and a haythen, and ye'r feyther lacking the
circumspection of an eft."

Bella was avid for adventure with Miss Della, and rode gaily by her side,
with Doogoolook and Wong as equerries. Gerry Butler suffered Danny's
conversation.

The Urquharts held them for two days for company. Danny had much talk
with Urquhart. Agnes and Janet, Jessie and Donald were eager for the
second generation of Delacys. The young men showed Gerry that he could
not have the accomplished Della to himself. Also present were Tom and Ned
Angus. Tom was the smart young man from the Victorian side of Monaro, who
had taken Birrabee, between Urquhart and Delacy. Ned was fourteen, but
already with a noticeable moustache. He became page to Della, who used
the sunny good-natured boy to keep her adult admirers at a distance.

Doogoolook took Danny away behind the stables and staged a pantomime of a
man with a revolver, using the signs for bad man. Danny grasped that
neither Tom nor Ned were bad, but had a bad man behind them. He put the
charitable construction on it. "It's wan of those things that will have
to develop or die out," he said. It was in the maturing pattern of his
life, which, so far, had been as uncomplicated as a windlass.

Burrabinga was no longer inaccessible and did not remain remote with two
pretty young women singing about a house with girly curtains on glass
windows, "crockery" on shelves, a white tablecloth for meals, and boards
on the main floors.

Gerald stayed a week watching Della and doting on her housekeeping.
"Surely," he mused, "she must take me soon now for fear of being an old
maid."



CHAPTER XIII


In his transition from parent of nestlings to Delacy man maintaining his
manhood among maturing sons, Delacy ran parallel with the progress of the
Colony.

Rebellion had early thrown out the "Rum Corps" and burst the shell of the
garde-major regime. Land grants to die favoured had ended twenty years
later. The financial doldrums of the 'forties, the momentum of the
golden 'fifties, more recently weathered, advanced a spirit of robust
democracy.

No section of society can maintain aristocratic amenities and elegancies
without a submerged race, whether slaves of another breed or the
unprivileged of its own, to do the hard and menial labour. Australia
began with manacled slaves, mostly misdemeanants, many of whom were
bedevilled into irreclaimable outlaws by archaic officialdom and its
right to prescribe the lash, but many factors operated against the
continuance of this ancient social composition. Wentworth and his
colleagues were early leaders in its disruption. Distance from old-world
authority and traditions of serfdom, and the scarcity of population of
any kind from which to draft menials, coupled with inebriating
opportunities for virile humanity loosed into an unspoiled continent,
were defeating to class demarcation. Due to a dearth of well-bred
females, the difference between freemen and emancipists was sunk in
unions among the native born. Landed gentry and budding plutocracy were
invigorated by marriages with the progeny of outlaws, in whose veins was
some of the hardiest and most adventurous blood in the human race.
Freedom and space, which in a virgin continent demanded courageous
resourcefulness, sharpened wits and ingrained self-reliance in the
people, and their isolation had, at its inception, an expansive
influence.

Wentworth's demand for autonomy, and later the surging equality
inevitable among the diversified congregations of freemen under the
compulsion of gold-rush condition, smashed the aristocratic assumption in
Australia and left an indelible stamp on Australian behaviour. With the
passing of the earliest "old hands" the national idiom had been
democratically fixed, its spirit a fresh attempt at egalitarianism, the
brothers of the Utopia to be at least as equal as blood brothers under
primogeniture. Distinctive national characteristics, some of them
paradoxical, were being ingrained by the force of environment.

Conditions, generally, were against the squattocracy entrenching itself
as a squirearchy. The squattocracy it had to remain, with the difference
between the Australian Bush and the English County so firmly marked that
the Australian squatter and his missus--save in lamentable examples--have
always been noted for a physical independence, a dignified ability to
fend for themselves, resembling that of the higher animal world.

Thus in attacking, with single-handed hardihood, the wilderness beyond
the fringe of the transplanted squirearchy, Delacy was a symbol and a
portent of an Australia which still pecks at its shell a hundred years
after his arrival. His practice of equality with all men was part of a
continent-wide experiment, which, when Delacy was in his grave was to
flower in measures of political freedom and protection for the ordinary
man which raised the personnel of the Australian working class to an
unprecedented level and then left it shoaled for lack of continuing
inspired leadership.

Absence of backward breeds diminished the flunkey class; the
transformation of the peasant element was in part the contribution of the
horse. No man can remain a peasant and go a-horse. Willy-filly the blood
saddle-horse will limber him out of his peasant characteristics. This
four-footed brother cannot supply what Nature omitted, and change dunces
into intellectuals, but he can lighten their bovine peculiarities.

Horses! Horses!

The whole population took to horse. Wishes were horses from the 'forties
onward.

Those congenitally unsuited to excel in horsemanship nevertheless climbed
on to nags and were forbearingly carried out. Even Delacy's Chinaman used
an aristocratic Nullah-Mundoey. The stodginess of the yokels from Europe
was swiftly massaged into something more flexible. The bumpkin was
exercised towards a swagger. The galoot, for good or ill, was transformed
into a stockrider, a jockey, a spieler, a drover, a horse-breaker, a
horse-toper, a horse-breeder--a caballero of one kind or another. He
plodded no more on foot. Only derelicts walked.

The man at one with light horses may be a brave dashing gentle man at
large, a cavalry officer at heel, a soulless undersized simian or any of
the intermediate grades, but lie ceases to be a peasant. Australia has
remained a peasantless Commonwealth, a peonless community.

Cavalier qualities were heightened in the Australian by the class of
horses available. He rode no mustangs with strawberry hides like those of
their horned brothers, but animals with a dash of good blood. The brumby
of Australian beginnings was an escaped blood on one side of his family
tree. Nevertheless, the dearth of menials, which forced pioneer tasks
upon the squatter, likewise saved the yokel from developing into a
full-blown caballero. The Australian horseman lacked the leisure and the
arena furnished with peons and flunkeys in which to develop picturesque
flourish in manners and to pursue _amour_ as a fine art. Complementary to
his responsibilities as wood-and-water joey and general rouseabout, all
the pioneer women, who pulled their weight on the frontier, had to cope
with toil which in Great Britain was relegated to "general slaveys".

The rough rider had little time for serenades and genuflexions, his lady
less to accept them. That perhaps is why the Australian has been
described as the world's worst lover, though he developed his own
commendable qualities and habits. Australian women, though inured to
hardship and deprivation, had true mateship and the large measure of
marital faithfulness attendant upon monogamy enforced by conditions; the
dignity of equal citizenship was early theirs.

Delacy, freeman by the accident of parentage as well as by the richer
endowment of mental and spiritual independence, reared his family when
the Colonies were expanding towards Commonwealth--not, however, to be
consummated until fifty years later--and he reared them on horseback.

The Delacys were woven into the great days of the horse, when he was
transporter in two senses, when all release, romance, adventure, travel,
hung on his withers. His usage demanded ability and daring and included
all the exhilarating swagger invested in furnishing the superbest of
creatures in hogskin and silver. His was a high destiny which remained
unchallenged for half a century.

Johanna's forbears gave their male children a horse at seven, and a sword
and spear. Regardless of sex, the Australian bush child had a horse long
before he was seven. Children went a-horse in the parents' arms before
they could sit up. At an earlier age they rode with their undefeatable
mothers to be born, for though property rights for women on the
Murrumbidgee had not then advanced far beyond Brehon law, the exigencies
of pioneering put women on horseback. A lop-sided saddle and long robes
were indispensable to constrain female limbs to spurious femininity, but
were not entirely discommoding.

The Australian Alps came near to being populated in the decades
succeeding the gold-rushes. Not only were there squatters, selectors and
fossickers. Horse shooters were present to do away with thousands of
horses. (Horsehair furniture was fashionable, to tickle the bare legs of
children.) There were kangaroo shooters and those who slaughtered the
lyre-bird. The mountains were alive with these fairy creatures. American
gold-seekers of the 'fifties remained to fossick through the 'sixties,
and saw the trade in their tails.

No one thought of conserving anything. Men worked to the limit, grunting
with effort. Women bore children without restraint and thought it God's
will. When jellied, fly-blown human backs had the sanction of society,
there was no tenderness towards animals, no artistic and scientific
realization that in Australia's living unique flora, fauna and avifauna
were masterpieces beyond anything she can ever contribute to museums and
galleries. Here was a wonder continent, a vast garden of Eden free from
sin and disease, left intact by the aborigines. The aim was to rifle it,
exploit it in greedy haste. People unable to project themselves beyond
the ancient soul-case wrought for them by the inspired members of their
race through a hundred generations in Europe were driven by their
immediate needs to uproot Australia, to tame it into a semblance of
familiar fields and towns. And there was abundance for all. Fire the
forests, destroy them, man was merely as an ant against them. Millions of
square miles of the stateliest trees in creation remained. Exterminate
Menura for his tail regardless of his magic powers of mimicry. Snare and
trap the possums, the kangaroos and all the marsupial tribes, droves of
them still appeared. Nemesis was not in that generation, nor the next.

That generation earned by sweat, endurance and deprivation the right to a
harvest of some kind, salted with a little swagger. It lies forgotten
now, while a less-inspired host of exploiteers, without hard toil, reaps
where the old hands blazed the track in sturdy if ignorant hardihood.

Kiandra and Adelong, the leading goldfields of Delacy's area, provided a
market for beef, for working bullocks, for every kind of horse. The
Delacys profited, so did the Anguses of Birrabee and the Urquharts of
Keebah, and many another. That region appealed to the native born. It was
rather beyond immigrants unskilled in bushcraft.

The influence of the Urquhart girls, and Della and her handmaiden Bella
Rafferty, was to transform the hobbledehoys of their runs into blades who
gave time to boots and horse gear, and naive and sometimes obscene
speculation upon the mysteriousness of women. Tom Angus was a model. He
had travelled and knew the Victorian side and Port Phillip as well as
Port Jackson. Down about Rose Hill and Liverpool he had learned the
niceties of pacing horses, the social graces of addressing ladies without
utter confusion, and he sec the fashion in all that swagger, beyond the
Murrumbidgee.



CHAPTER XIV


"One door never shuts but another opens," observed Johanna.

The shut door was that of her friend Mr Moore, who had died during
Robert's final term at College. Johanna's youthful annoyance had sold
Bandalong Station and departed for Dublin to rejoin his brother, who had
refused to return to Australia years before on completing his education
at Trinity College.

The new door opened by grace of Robert, whose career at Bewuck revived
his mother's spirit. She ascended from her gorges to take her place in
the pastoral society of the country that stretched away to Goulburn on
one side and Monaro on the other. It had chafed her to be held back to
take the dust of expirees. Danny's notion that a man should be judged by
character regardless of financial or social success, was to Johanna
rankly foolish. Who was Danny to judge men? He had no special rights in
divination. It had been lively enough for him, leathering about the
country, but she had been restricted to uncouth loneliness beside the
waterhole of evil reputation in the sombre river with its lorn
casuarinas.

Robert took her to call on the Butlers of Glenties and on the new and
stylish owners at Quebarra and at Bandalong. She had the satisfaction of
refusing her acquaintance to Mrs Wells, farther up the river, because her
father had been a convict. When the river permitted, Robert set her on a
gentle horse and visited the Fullwoods of Heulong.

The Fullwoods displayed the portrait of an ancestor in an Elizabethan
ruff, as well as a sword, and a few pieces of table silver bearing a
crest, and were authentically from the flanges of the squirearchy,
whereas Johanna's parent was Irish and somewhat of a squireen through
being the younger son of a younger son too many times in succession in a
subject country.

In the Heulong family were two daughters of suitable age for Robert, who
was not at first aware of his mother's hopes, though the association
pleased him because he too found his father's democratic eccentricities
distasteful. He was, and felt himself the equal of the crackest young men
in the district, and in a position to make intimates among them as he
willed. He could resist few women unless they were grandmothers or as
ugly as a mormops. He did not relish remarks about himself as coachie,
but when Grace Fullwood came to stay at Bewuck and sat on the box beside
him, he was compensated. His gallant manner was taken for serious
attention by Grace Fullwood, but little Mollie McCathie at Hennessy's pub
was more seductive. She was generous, and Robert was a taker of all gifts
from women. The tall insipid Grace, with a nose like his own, only
sharper, and weak blue eyes and sandy hair, was outclassed by the plump
and ticklesome Molly of the button nose and darting wit. She was merely
the orphaned niece of the publican, but that gentleman had orthodox Irish
ideas for her behaviour and kept a shrewd eye on her admirers. Maidens
were in demand, and Hennessy had ambitions.

Johanna enjoyed making purchases in the Township as much as Robert
enjoyed other entertainment to be found there. Her turkeys throve like
the rabbits of later years on the grass and grass-hoppers of the river
flats. There were no enemies but native cats and crows, and Robert
perfected his marksmanship on the crows. His mother was glad to give him
the latest swagger in firearms. She would have felt safer in the
beginning had the blacks been kept in their place (or out of it, as Danny
would have maintained), by lethal weapons instead of conciliation, though
Danny's policy had been vindicated by results.

Mrs Delacy was not any longer afraid of the blacks, though they visited
Bewuck in force the year that Della went to Burrabinga, and Maeve
interpreted their demand for a beast. Cattle were now a high price and
Robert was against paying this rent until his vanity was prickled by the
leader, who said, "Him plum flash, minetinkit. Him no budgery old pfella
Nullah-Mundoey."

The old gins--very witch-like towards the end--crept in as softly as
shadows and sat in the kitchen fireplace, and emitted wild guffaws when
they startled Johanna. That was the last season that she heard against
the soughing of her casuarinas their piercing cry:

Munny munny lumby adjong cooo!

They moved on to fight with rival tribes on the tableland towards Monaro,
where the fray was ended by the settlers, and it was in that decade that
the aborigines began to dwindle from the district.


Robert was developing a thriving business in harness horses, whose
subjugation was furthered by a turn in the plough, on which occasions
Robert's daring furrows would not have earned him a place in the
ploughing matches of The Plains. He coveted a gig and tandem with which
to eclipse a bullet-headed young man from one of the big stations down
the Murrumbidgee beyond Wagga Wagga. Once having seen such a turn-out he
wearied of the carriage, and at that date the horses bolted with it and
broke a window and sprained an axle. Many turkeys would be needed o pay
for a gig, but chance aided Robert. A messenger from Burrabinga brought
instructions to sell the surplus horned cattle and leave Bewuck for
topping-up beasts that were coming down. Robert kept the money from a
steer he sold to a teamster and told his mother that Hennessy had found a
gig for the sum of her turkey money.

Robert trained a likely pair for the gig, and his handling of them up and
down the street, and curving in and out of the pub's back yard, was so
capable that Hennessy consented when Robert invited Molly, to drive with
him.

"Git up to no foolery, and stay widin soight of me," said Hennessy. This
was concession to propriety so that Molly's matrimonial stock should not
be lowered.

Molly put on her new leghorn bonnet, her shawl and mittens, mounted a
chair and into the gig with ostentatious modesty in handling her skirts.
Her heart fluttered. Robert was the most striking young man in the
district, with his aquiline profile and Johanna's eyes--grown blacker and
more piercing. He could not ride as well as his brothers, but chose the
most showy of the Nullah Mundoeys, and had the finest tackle and boots and
breeches, and with his willowy grace was the perfect figure of a
horseman, like the Magyars of old.

Hennessy saw him as a profitable catch, if nothing better came within
reach. Old Delacy was too white a man to grow rich, like some of the
squatters, but Bewuck would fall to the eldest son, already in
possession. The profits to be made from fools by pubbing could add to it.
Also, Hennessy's was the general store, which retailed everything from
marbles to hairpins, a pennyworth of pack thread to a ship's cable,
jaconet to moleskin, as the broadsheet--forerunner of a Township
newspaper--announced to Hennessy's "distinguished patrons". Farmers were
surrounding the Township, and Hennessy had a tract of the Moore station
where he depastured the horses of his patrons. Many animals thus melted
through alcohol into his permanent possession. The township had grown as
a centre for fossickers beyond the Murrumbidgee, and the Great Southern
Road was crawling with teams carrying goods from Sydney and needing
accommodation for man and beast.

Hennessy was growing rich, and he craved position. He remained unmarried
because the women available would not advance him socially. He longed for
Molly to marry into one of those families which had snubbed him as a lag,
a terrier from the bogs of Ireland, and a publican. Delacy had been
neither familiar nor superior, but had treated Hennessy as he did all
men. Hennessy was therefore well-disposed towards the Delacy breed.
Delacy was a "black Prodestan'", but Mrs Delacy had been born in the "wan
thrue Church", and Hennessy would not permit creed to stand in the way of
social ascent. The Church had not been so ready with comfort when he had
been a lag as it was with requests for support now that he was behind an
auriferous bar. So he allowed Molly to christen the gig and got Robert on
his books with an advance for it.

Honoria, shortened to Norah, had also been some time at home, her
education completed, her life begun, and Stewart Butler, brother of
Gerald. was among the most frequent callers at Bewuck.

Gerald went to Burrabinga, but Della remained unmoved by his pleas. She
enjoyed her position in charge of a house of her own, with no husband to
dictate to her. Bella Rafferty found life with Miss Della a holiday, and
queened it in a kitchen full of admirers. Bella was more popular than her
mistress, and had nearly as good a chance as Molly McCathie at the pub,
of marrying into the squattocracy. Della was of unbroachable
maidenliness. Bella was full of fun and more approachable. There were
large crumbs from her table of maidenhood as well as the probability of a
real helping.

There was facetious "teasing" when James Fullwood appeared every Saturday
night. He was the bachelor and younger brother of Charles at Heulong, and
held a rough run near Wong Foo. He was attributed to Della and Bella in
turn. Della repudiated the imputation with scorn. Bella tried to ape her,
but furious blushes defeated her.

Danny discouraged that kind of raillery. "Arrah! 'Twould be better to
occur our moinds with something essential. What James Fullwood a good
dinner cooked and laid out by a woman after a week of beef and damper on
a log. A few soft words in anny direction is little to pay for it, and
comes natural to bachelors, old or young--more to the old than the young,
I'm thinking. They're more brazen in the horn."

Bella resented this. Her pate harboured an apophthegm concerning an old
man's darling. Mrs Wells (on whom Mrs Delacy refused to call) had married
old Wells who had a better place than Bewuck and Burrabinga together. The
father of Mrs Wells had worked in irons and made no secret of it. Mrs
Wells had shepherded the Wells sheep barefooted, and had been called
Polly by every one until she was sixteen. Now she wore a silk dress and a
lot of rings and brooches, and sat inside with old Wells, and ate his
mutton openly instead of that secretly obtained by her dad from the same
source, while any one who dared to address her as Polly was caustically
set right by old Wells and sent to the hut or kitchen to eat.

Bella resented having to eat in the kitchen, when all the men were agreed
that she was much prettier than Della. It looked as if Della might be an
old maid--a failure and a disgrace.

Nor did Danny approve of Bella eating in the kitchen. It increased his
burden as chaperon, as in his day virginity was guarded by eternal
vigilance. The girls shared one bedroom for safety, but Johanna decreed
that Bella should be kept in her place for meals, otherwise both girls
would be recalled. Johanna said that while there was breath in her body,
she would not submit to her daughters being ruffians as well as
"haythens". Danny yielded more to Johanna in her recalcitrance than he
had done since the larks sang loud and high to them at Cooley Hall.

Della's early fixation remained. Her ideal was an urban life with a sleek
city man. The bush had not quickened her imagination; she absorbed
nothing from its differences to add to her natal endowment. She liked the
Anguses best of the circle. Tom's flowery manners appeased her romantic
idea of what a gentleman should be. Young Ned, now advanced to a full
moustache, remained her devoted page.

Tom and Ned were rich, with girls on both sides of them. There was room
for them all, and plenty of live stock to be captured by the resourceful.
Danny stuck to walers. The Anguses had a rare beast named the Bedouin,
advertised as pure Arab, with a perfect head and a crest as lordly as the
English thoroughbreds. He had no flaw except a too-feminine head. The
grace of the muzzle and clean-cut jaw, with the full bright eyes in the
mane that hung to his knees, suggested a houri in her tresses, but such
was his pre-potence as a sire that no brand was necessary to distinguish
his progeny.

The two breeders did not tread on each other's skirts. The Anguses worked
up a reputation for polo ponies, and they and the Delacys once chartered
a ship to take their horses direct to Calcutta. Tom Angus and Robert fell
into fervent friendship, with their love of showy horses as a bond.
Robert saw the possibilities of the Bedouins as harness horses for small
vehicles and coveted a tandem for his gig, but there would be trouble
with father, who had a mania for big horses, like his notion of an
over-roomy hat filled with leaves, and a large boot padded with
cloth--the Prince Alberts of the derelicts.

"With wan leg wouldn't ye find a smaller horse easier to climb on?"
Johanna would demand.

"Och, I like to be where I can look around, not crawling about with the
efts and ants."

Robert and Toni called on the Butlers and. Fullwoods and did the Township
in company. Tom was charmed by Molly, and she seemed to favour him more
than Robert, but Hennessy did not encourage Tom. He knew just what the
Delacys were, and were not. In Tom he saw a young man as astute as
himself, and who, like himself, never mentioned his antecedents.

At this time Mrs Fullwood's sister came to Heulong, Mrs Euphemia
Fitzhugh, widow of a Major of Crimean fame, a topside lady in her own
estimation, who gave a social fillip to her relatives. Her crinolines and
ringlets, her bracelets and shawls were the twitter of the district.

Mrs Delacy and Mrs Fitzhugh met in the parlour of Hennessy's hotel, which
ascended socially with the widow's arrival. It was regarded as a palace
since a recent addition of a wing of two stories. "Sure," said Danny,
"There is a man who sees, ahead. Hennessy is going to be the biggest man
in the district."

"He will be able to show himself in a circus," said Johanna.

"Och, woman, there's no sense at you."

"His brogue would carry a horse," said Johanna contemptuously. Danny
chortled. "You think yourself has less brogue than Hennessy, and I think
I have less than you, but outsiders would lump us all together."

"Only those who don't know a grape from a gooseberry would be so
ignorant," maintained Johanna.

Johanna was over-impressed by Euphemia Fitzhugh, so long had she been
exiled from gentility, and so eager was she to offset Danny's oddity in
practice of equality. Mrs Fitzhugh was recruiting an army of satellites
and was condescendingly gracious. Hennessy had long been looking for a
widow suitable to his secret ambition, and eyed this one as he might a
likely blood mare. He ambled up on all occasions and was excessively
ingratiating. The lady encouraged him. She was of the old country school,
and felt that she conferred favour and happiness on any members of the
lower orders by accepting their service or substance.

Mrs Fullwood, her sister, a much quieter bird, murmured of the trouble in
crossing the Murrumbidgee, which separated them from the Township and the
best of the seignorials.

"We need," said Mrs Fitzhugh, "two vehicles. We could then come to the
river, cross in the boat, and take up our travels again on this side."

Mrs Fullwood had but recently acquired her only vehicle, a small cart.

"'Tis a pity," said Mrs Delacy, "that my carriage is out of order. I
could lind it to ye without anny inconvenience at all, as I have a gig
now. Me son is a great whip."

"Oh, yes, your son, that young gentleman I observed this morning. He was
educated in Sydney, I hear."

Johanna glowed. "And Norah, too, and also her sister Della, in the
mountains."

"I understand that your husband has his main seat in the mountains."

"I'm thinking his main seat up there is a-hor-seback," responded Johanna
with humour. "There's not much other In those regions. 'Tis not like the
old country."

This conversation was taking place at dinner. "That is very handsome of
ye, Mrs Delacy," interposed Hennessy, in reference to the carriage. He
was carving a mighty roast. Since he had enlarged the hotel, he sat at
table and carved for his select guests. There was a tag-rag table
downstairs, and people could also be exclusive by dining in a
sitting-room. Hennessy was real host, no vassal. He turned with a
flourish to the widow. "Sure, 'twould be noice if a lady who has come to
ornamint our disthrict could move about at her aise. Would ye'r carriage
be nading much repairing, Mrs Delacy?"

"More than I want to spind on it, me having no use for such a caravan."

"If ye'll be so gracious as to lind it, Oi'll kape moi ind up by having
it repaired in me own shop."

Johanna was uneasy, thinking of Danny. Hennessy beamed broadly. Mrs
Fitzhugh languished and gushed. She would not be out of pocket by the
undertaking: it was the privilege of inferiors to pay. Robert, in debt to
Hennessy, offered to bring in the carriage.

When the job was tackled the carriage had to be put on the dray, and took
more than a week of Hannon's time with Robert's help, when they should
have been mending the fences, and always, when no other tasks pressed,
have been grubbing, ring-barking and cultivating if Bewuck was to
prosper. Robert did not drive the bullocks. He delegated labour.

Mrs Fitzhugh was amiable to those who might be useful, and Robert was up
to Colonial standards. She liked personable men to curvet around her
crinoline.

Hennessy played for attention by talking of his orphaned niece. "God hilp
me, Oi nade the advoice of a lady such as ye'rself, if ye'll pardon the
presumption in bothering ye. Ye would be a motthel for anny young faymale
that had the distinguished opporchunity of observing ye."

Hennessy's manner had none of the brusque independence which made the
native born so odious. She would be enchanted to influence the
unfortunate Molly, and jumped to the conclusion that "these persons"
would supply her with a free personal maid as well as a carriage.

Molly astutely perceived the lady's condescension. Their meeting bristled
into an encounter. Molly did not curtsy. She did not smile. She stood as
uncompromisingly as a corner post. Mrs Fitzhugh assumed hauteur. Molly
made such an unabashed inspection of the widow's person, district by
district, that the proprietor grew conscious of defects. Mrs Fitzhugh
felt that Molly was too odiously a hussy for anything but salutary
reform. Molly meant to copy Mrs Fitzhugh's tricks of adornment. She left
the widow to make all the advances. Euphemia lost her way and covered her
defeat by languishing. "I declare I feel so overdone that my head aches."

"Maybe," said Molly, "if you cut your stay-laces you'd feel better. I'm
always afraid of apoplexy when old people are so stout."

Mrs Fitzhugh looked in danger of a seizure and felt too like one to
retort.

"An odious hussy, the real malapert," she remarked to her sister later.
What would have been her state of mind could she have seen into
Hennessy's where she reposed as a possible aunt for that hussy, because
of successful marriages in the squattocracy between persons equally
incongruous?

He insisted upon Molly sitting at table with the guests, and would not
permit her to do any menial tasks. He measured his money-making powers
with those of his contemporaries and knew he had few equals, and that
money was the most powerful key to any society, even that of the
angels--with their harps and pavements of gold.

Overhearing Molly's blague with the young men, when their women were not
by, Euphemia warned her sister, "You had better watch that creature
unless you want her in the family."

Mrs Fullwood replied that both her sons of suitable age were pursuing
Della and Honoria Delacy.

"Dear me, is that desirable? Mrs Delacy is a well-meaning little person;
she knows her place better than the McCathie minx, but she is so Irish. I
suppose Mr Delacy married beneath him. Have they money?"

"No, they are comparatively poor."

"Then why do you acknowledge them?"

"Every one thinks highly of Mr Delacy's character."

"I should not encourage them. Much more than honesty is necessary to make
a good match."

"They are going to provide you with a carriage."

"I wish I had known before we accepted it. We must not let such people
presume upon our condescension. The young man will take it as an
encouragement for Grace, I fear. We must use the carriage to take her
away from his attention. That. would be a just rebuke for his
presumption."

Mrs Fullwood sighed. Euphemia had a great deal to learn in the Colonies.
Mrs Fullwood had been reared in the same snobbery, but there had been
much of loneliness, hardship and childbearing to counteract it. "I don't
think Robert Delacy thinks so much of Grace as she does of him."

"She must be cured of such foolishness. It would be helpful to let Molly
Mc. have her way with the Delacy boy."

"If we could be sure that she would have it with him and not with my
Aubrey."

"Hennessy should be spoken to. Surely he knows his placer"

Euphemia had surprising things to learn of Hennessy's place. Mrs Fullwood
sighed again, uneasily, remembering her account at Hennessy's store.
Charles Fullwood, Esq., always had more classyupper-classy--work for the
money made at Heulong than payment of Hennessy's bills. Charles, like his
sister-in-law, felt that it was the lower orders' privilege to run big
bills for their betters.


"Sure, there's a foine thriving lady for ye--a hoigh sthepper if iver
there was wan," observed Hennessy to his niece, Molly McCathie.

"Fat old thing! Thinks she's Lady Muck, and we are the dirt beneath her
feet," said Molly to her uncle Hennessy, the Township publican.

"Ye from the convent, and have ye no genteeler language for a lady who
could bring ye on?"

"Bring me on!" snorted Molly. "She'd rather put me down."

"She's maybe a little hard to howld," conceded Hennessy. "But loike a
blood mare, when ye git used to her stroide, a great goer." Molly tossed
her head--like a blood filly. There were others she did not much care
for either. Mrs Fullwood was a rag, but old mother Delacy had started to
be top-lofty, and that was worse than Mrs Fitzhugh. Johanna had seen
alarming passages between Molly and Robert, and the other hotels were no
more than shanties for bullockies; besides, she quaked lest Danny might
consider Molly a fine girl, fit for any man.

When the carriage was repaired she suggested that Mrs Fullwood, her
sister, and Grace should visit Bewuck. Mrs Fitzhugh consented to one
night there on her tour of the district's (would-be) manorial families.
This would reward the Delacys for the carriage.

Mrs Delacy prepared a turkey feast and used all her elegancies, from the
Irish linen to the plated toast rack. Jane Hannon cooked. Maeve was free
to hand the dishes, and entered into the spirit of the occasion as she
always did into everything that her family staged. Mrs Fullwood thought
how comfortable the place was, how swimming in plenty; and Robert was so
charming to his mother, so gallant to the guests. It was a treat to see
him managing.

Euphemia was more critical. "She's a kind little woman, but so _dreadfully_
Irish." Her tone implied that to be Irish was socially as bad as
convictism.

"The Duke of Wellington himself was Irish," said Mrs Fullwood in defence
of her helpful neighbour.

"Yes, but not Mrs Delacy's kind. She has a brogue that you could cut with
a knife."

Mrs Fullwood--very foolishly, Euphemia thought--asked Mrs Delacy to
accompany them on the tour. She rather timorously accepted, expressing
the fear that she might be crushing the others.

"Couldn't Grace stay and keep me company till you come back," suggested
Honoria.

Mrs Fitzhugh instantly vetoed this.

Robert interposed. "Go with Mrs Fullwood, Ma, as far as Glenties, and
I'll bring you back in the gig. If Grace will drive with me going it will
leave room in the carriage."

"I should adore a spin behind your tandem," promptly said Mrs Fitzhugh.

"Even better," said the adroit Robert. "I should have to plead with
Grace, but you offer kindly to keep me company."

Horses and driver were supplied by the accommodating Hennessy. Mrs
Fitzhugh was relieved to drop the Delacys at Butlers' and proceed from
there as though the carriage were her own. "The carriage is totally above
the poor little person," she observed to Grace. "She means well, but she
is so _dreadfully_ Irish."

Mrs Fitzhugh had her own hunting to attend to. The Major had been so gay
a buck that she was comparatively destitute. She was now chary of the
army and navy, but had heard tales of prizes without apparent reason but
the right attitude of inferiors towards betters. An auspicious beginning.

Robert's business increased. Fancy prices were obtainable in Sydney and
Melbourne for well-matched pairs. Tom Angus picked the animals and sent
them to Robert to educate. Robert felt himself flowing in money so that
he postponed paying Hennessy. Hennessy let the debt increase without
remark. Robert became independent of his mother's turkey bank. Money that
came so easily seemed his own, without the recognition that it was made
at the expense of Bewuck.

When she had canvassed the elite for eligibles, Mrs Fitzhugh did not
bother to thank the owner of the carriage, nor return it. She left it at
Hennessy's hotel, where it was speedily referred to as Mrs Fitz's by the
menials who had to tend it. She had to travel from Heulong on horseback,
and bluntly deplored the station being on the wrong side of "that
absurdly named river".

Charles Fullwood was with James in the mountains mustering the cattle
near Wong Foo's claim. Euphemia was waiting to see James. She could not
consider him while he remained in the impenetrable wilds, but in a new
country everything was open to a man of family, if he had the sense to
insist upon his rights.

Grace wrote to Robert in care of Hennessy's hotel, if his visits to
Heulong were too widely spaced.



CHAPTER XV


Robert's father maintained his hardihood at Burrabinga. Johanna had
called it a lost region in days when none wanted it, and up to the time
of her great-grandchildren its caves and gorges, streams and mountain
crests, were to remain but little-known to any save wombats and eagles or
those who would ride the Federal Capital Territory. In the beginning
hundreds of thousands of acres were held in Crown Leases at less than £50
per annum. At that, the lessees paid high in endurance, hard sweat,
loneliness and physical danger, and if ever a holding was earned it was
Burrabinga by the Delacys, despite the racial or legal rights of any
other man's posterity.

The distances round about were estimated from Burrabinga. Old
Nullah-Mundoey made it a landmark and it was called sixty miles from
everywhere, because it was sixty miles from Gool Gool as well as the
Township. It was thirty miles from the corroboree grounds, twenty from
Wong Foo, also twenty from O'Neill's outpost to the south. He was jealous
of intruders at his end, and Wong Foo was an acute inspector at his.
Delacy had won their loyalty.

On their frontiers the Delacys had trap yards baited with salt and
supported by drafting plants. These were built like stockades with logs
drawn into place by bullocks, labour which entailed sweating among swarms
of flies from dawn until dark on a diet of damper and salt junk and tea
without milk. Foxhunting squires might have balked at the ordinary
performances of the Delacys' days.

On a morning in January when the century was in its sixties, and Danny in
his fifties, he was to be seen at the top of his form at Dead Horse
Plain. Scrub bulls were deteriorating the wild mobs and could be shot, or
emasculated for working bullocks. Shooting at large made too much packing
of hides, the cutting-out process was impossible in that country, and
drafting in the yards was dangerous.

"We'll take out the visitors first," was the order.

Honest Delacy was punctilious about other people's stock, even in
careless fenceless days. He would weary horse-flesh to send home strays,
and man-flesh was squandered by all the Delacys, even by Robert, as
compared with other men. The strays dealt with, Danny proceeded to test a
theory. He said that if he stood still he would be safe from a charging
bull, though not from a cow. In the big yard were posts to duck behind,
but a man who took to the rails too often was howled out of composure as
a new chum or yellow.

"You can't prove that without being gored to smithereens," protested
William.

"Am I an eft not to learn from experience--with the beasts a lifetime!"
However, he compromised.

He would test his theory with an effigy made of tussocks and his coat and
worked with a rope. With a yapping of dogs and a whirlwind of dust a few
of the luniest scrubbers went into the big yard. They charged with a mad
bellow to within a breath of the figure, then swerved and walloped up to
the high fence. Catching sight of the scarecrow from a fresh angle they
rushed again, and again halted without touching it. Half a dozen more
bulls were run in maddened by the chase, but it was always the same.

They were put through again while Danny pulled the string. One old fellow
pawed the earth and threatened with angry roar, and when he saw it move
rushed to gore it.

"Didn't I tell you to keep still and you're safe."

"Who in thunder could keep still?" demanded Harry.

"Sure, I'll take no chances with the ladies, but drive in that Bullock
Gap mob and I'll pick out the stags without anny confusion whatever."

Doogoolook, stockmen, O'Neill, Anguses, William and Harry were all
helping. Tom Angus had his revolver quietly ready. Danny took a position
in the big yard, plunking his hat on his head and planting his peg
stoutly in the ground. His beard was now long but without a grey hair.

William and Harry were at the drafting gates armed with heavy roping
poles. Others were at the flood gate. In rushed the cattle. There was not
a move in Delacy. The beasts charged on and away leaving him so at ease
that when one rushed back instead of to the split, Danny, full of
enjoyment, wheeled with a "Whist me boy!" and met him again.

"By Jove! I take off my hat to you, Mr Delacy," cried Tom. "The most
fearless man I ever saw, bar none."

A thunderstorm soaked the dust at noon. Later Danny took the fairway to
open the gate. A cow charged him and he tripped and fell. The cow bounded
over him and on to that freedom, more enticing that revenge. In her wake
dashed the mob. Danny lay still in the mud. The spectators were as
helpless to arrest the rush as if the bottom had opened in a sack of
onions. They leapt towards the mound left in its track, Harry with a
screech of horror, William an oath. Danny, hearing their exclamations
above him, sat up, a weird figure, clad in mud--safe.

"Aren't you hurt at all?" demanded William, as they helped him up.

"Hurt, by damn! Sure, I'm smothered and murdered in mud with all the wild
cattle in the kingdom lepping over me! Be all the poipers, there's
intelligence in brute creation--not wan so much as flicked me in passing.
'Twould be incredible if you heard it as a yarn. I'll go clean meself at
the creek."

His pipe was in place so that the onlookers were taken with
uncontrollable laughter--hysterical relief.

"Moi, oh, moi!" he observed, "It takes little to amuse those not too
capacious in the top story."

All the men rode home to Burrabinga that night. Now that the girls were
there they returned as often as possible for the bright company and the
good cooking. There were vegetables in the garden started by Wong Foo.
Slips or pips brought during Johanna's day were in full bearing. Quince
suckers took root if merely stuck in the rich dark loam. There was
adventure in seedling apples, and they grew in great glory at Burrabinga.
In autumn their branches bent to the earth in a harvest as free from
disease as the first garden ere the sins and weeds of man intruded.

The salt of necessity and the sugar of hearty admiration urged Della and
Bella to lively housewifery. There were ever volunteers to help them with
storing the quinces, apples, pumpkins, and pie melons, which remained
until fruit ripened again. If the girls' supplies ran low, Wong Foo, by
some telepathy, would arrive with vegetables or exotic luxuries.

He was awaiting the men on their return from the drafting. A member of
the family by right of being swaddled in Danny's rug, he was sitting in
the principal room on a prized chair carved by a stockman. Wong was
wearing his grand suit. Like his saddle and gear it was still in perfect
order.

"Such a pity those things are wasted on a Chow," said Bella.

Family business had brought Wong. He noted that Burrabinga cattle were
disappearing from his end of the run while the Delacys were elsewhere
occupied. Cattle could migrate, but when they left a hide behind them
Wong saw that it was always of the Delacy mobs. He was too astute to
blurt out his suspicions until he had prospected.

"You sellum muchee clattle Missa James Flullwood?" he inquired. Danny
said no. "You sellum any lulla man?"

A list of sales was given. Wong proceeded.

"Whaffor hide off you clattle lie in sclub out by me alla samee sclub
longa gladen lulla side liver?"

Wong pointed to the tea-tree groves of the swampy flats in the direction
of Birrabee.

"Some fossicker has helped himself to free beef," remarked William.

Wong resorted to diagrams on the ground behind the the cow-yard, safe
from the ears of women and "hands". It appeared to be bigger than beef
for a few men. "Any strange men there lately?"

"No. Alla samee ol' fliends, Missa James Flullwood."

"Wong has got hold of a bull's nest," said William. "We must ask old
Jimmy if he has missed any stock."

Wong was too cautious to mention names again, or all that he had noted.
He urged Delacy to muster the Bullock Gap runs and to stay the night.
"Blinga lun ladies. Makee big feast. Ladies one hut, men lulla."

The girls seized upon this.

Wong went off in the morning at full gallop, his hat on the back of his
head, his coat flapping, his body swaying from side to side as if he were
drunk. He was eager to begin on one of the biggest occasions of his
Burrabinga career.

"Enough to give the horse a sore back through to the girth," remarked
Harry.

"Golly, yes! A Nullah-Mundoey wasted," said William.

"I'd rather see Wong on a good horse than manny of the scoundrels that
ride about the country," said Danny. "Often the best riders are the worst
men." The young men asserted that there never was a Chinese horseman.
"Arrah! You can't swim without water, and Wong was a townie in any case."

"But town men here can ride," observed Harry.

"They sit on horses to save walking," corrected William.

Wong rode in again during the week with a pack-horse and two hides, which
he spread behind the cowshed in triumph.

"Me chasen honey bloke, and see ol' fella clows, and findem."

The Delacy boys decided to investigate. They were inviting the Urquhart's
to Wrong's party. Danny sent a note asking Urquhart to chaperon the
girls.

James Fullwood rode in to Burrabinga the day following Wong's arrival. He
paid his respects to the girls impartially, but Della was indifferent,
and Bella effusive. As soon as possible he took Delacy behind the shed,
that spot where secrets were told.

"I know you keep that Chink prospector as a pet, but do you let him do
what he likes with your cattle?"

"I let him have a beast when he needs it."

"He wouddn't need two in a week."

"Och, he's preparing a great feast for us all and maybe has exaggerated
notions."

"But I'm speaking of two weeks past. I found a hide pegged out above his
claim. When I found another it looked pretty rum. The tracks all round
were Wong's."

Delacy led Fullwood to the hides. "Those are off my spotted steers that
ran at Bullock Gap--would it be those you saw?"

"You found them yourself ?"

"Wong brought them. He thought someone had duffed them."

"I'd keep an eye on Wong, if I were you. There's a lot more in that old
Chink head than comes out."

"That's because we are too ignorant to understand him."

"What's yours seems to be his, but if I catch him meddling with my
beasts, I'll make it hot for him."

"Ah, sure, Wong Foo is a foine man."

"I thought it my duty to warn you."

"Sure, you've done what you thought right to a neebur. Turn your horse
out for the night."

O'Neill came down for rations that Saturday after a month's absence, and
Delacy instructed him to keep his eyes open for evidence of any cattle or
horse duffers in his direction.



CHAPTER XVI


Wong Foo had two prospectors' huts set in cultivated plots. In one he
kept utensils and table implements, which he used in imitation of Bewuck.
In this he had berths prepared for the girls. His feast included one duck
per person cooked in Chinese fashion, with a great array of vegetables,
followed by Oriental comfits.

The Delacys were proud of Wong Foo and justified in their fosterage.
Wong's gallantry jacked-up that of the others, and the girls had pretty
presents and more attention than they could absorb.

There were practical jokes and games--old games designed to aid _amour_
while preserving convention. James Fullwood most frequently chose Bella
Rafferty for partner. Della contented, herself with her young cavalier,
Ned, who had remained deep in calf-love with her. She found him useful as
a buffer between her and men better matched to her years. William Delacy
fancied Janet Urquhart, but was so gauche that she did not become aware
of it. Harry, eager, impressionable, and starved for the humanities,
monopolized her. Any young woman untarnished by familiarity could be
placed in the role of a princess, and Janet, shapely of form and pleasing
of face, served well.

Urquhart approved of William Delacy; other suitors were none so
desirable. Keebah was shut away from many families by the Murrumbidgee
during half the year, and his two eldest daughters, Sarah and Agnes, had
not married well.

Wong took the gentlemen to his own hut where Delacy and Urquhart revived
memories of Bendigo and Ballarat over a jug of Jamaica for another hour.
Wong reserved his couch for them, and the other men rolled in their own
blankets. The boys awakened at daylight to find Wong already stirring,
while the red Scottish and black Irish beards intermingled as the old
mates slept it off.

When later the two told the tale, they proclaimed, "Ghost it was
laughable to see a Chinaman so tight!" But the young men gave their
version, and comments from Johanna were so puncturing that Danny
relinquished the story. Mrs Janet Urquhart suffered it with a cold steady
glare that was attributed by Sandy to feminine kill-joyism and lack of
sense of humour.

James Fullwood himself had been "three sheets in the wind", but the fall
of Danny and Sandy was the subject of his facetiousness with Bella. She
giggled flatteringly and contributed spirited accounts of what happened
when her father (nominal) was drunk. She had a robust sense of humour
free from kill-joyism.

"I like to see a man a little on top of hisself," said she. "But Ma is
always joring."

Della was contemptuous of Fullwood's familiarity with her servant and
turned her smiles towards young Urquhart.

The day was spent in visiting caves, and the second night at Fullwood's
station. There was no such feast as at Wong's, but the bathing was
improved by rice and potatoes boiled in the one billycan with the salt
junk. On the third day Urquhart Senior escorted the women back to
Burrabinga homestead, while Danny, with a whoop, assembled dogs and men
and started after the mobs of the region. The Urquhart sons joined in to
see if any of their own cattle were in that direction.

They were all surprised by the few beasts sighted. Doogoolook confirmed
the theory of duffing with evidence of a mixed mob being driven towards
the Great Southern Road. He pointed to the tracks of two horses. One
belonged to the Anguses. His pupils, William and Harry, were equally
acute, and verified the Angus tracks as those of a mare that had
disappeared a month before. The young Delacys and Anguses turned into
troopers instanter and left the mustering to Fullwood and the Urquharts.

"I expected this," remarked Fullwood to Delacy.

"There's been a power of cattle lifted down Monaro way, and it's a curse
for it to start here," he responded.

"I mean the horse tracks. You might owe Wong a beast or two for all the
feasts he provides, but the Anguses are close about their past. Never any
brag about _their_ family."

"What the dayvil good is a man's family? Descent gave an unfair pull in
the old country, but out here a man has to be a man and make his ascent
himself."

"You'd think twice though before giving your daughter to a man of no
family?"

"Are you proposing for me daughter, James Fullwood?"

"There are too many younger blades in the running."

"She takes her time. There is no telling where her fancy will evintually
settle."

"Are you proposing to me for a son-in-law, Mr Delacy?"

This point fell in jocularity. Fullwood persisted with the other. "Jokes
aside, it was about the Anguses' reputation."

"Have ye annything definite? If so, let's put it to them, and they can
defend themselves. A hint without evidence is a snake in the grass, like
that boomer you dispatched to-day at the lickhole, and moi, oh, moi!"
Danny took a meditative pull at the pipe, "I'm thinking that the poor
snake was moinding his own business, and we intruding. If you begin to
contimplate the injustices of the universe they are beyond
disentangling."

Fullwood headed Danny out of a philosophic gully. "Most interesting, Mr
Delacy, and I'm one to live and let live, but the tracks of that Angus
horse following a mob of your cattle off the run are rather more
interesting to me."

"It looks as if the Anguses had lost their mare."

Doogoolook returned a day later with the Bedouin mare, leg-weary and
galled. He deposed, by signs, that he had found her among wild horses
between Birrabee and Keebah. Delacy pointed to the saddle galls and asked
if Wong had made them. Doogoolook intimated otherwise.

"It would be easy to make a mistake on his evidence," remarked Fullwood.
"I wouldn't convict a proved criminal on it."

"Let's ask if William made the galls," chortled Harry, but William
snorted that he could not make such a mess of a horse if he lived on it.

Fullwood promised to report any further evidence immediately. Danny
remained a night behind the others and enjoyed a talk with Wong.

"Who you tinkem bad man, steal um cattle?" demanded Wong. "Some fellow up
the Bland, maybe."

"You likee young Angus--tinkum good fellow mally glels; or you likee
betta Missa Fullwood, tinkum betta gentleman?"

"Sure, a man could be a king and I would not consider him a gentleman
unless he was an honest man first. One man is as good as another if he is
as good--do you understand? But, of course, it has to be proved first."

"Which you likee good best, Tom Angus or Missa Fullwood?" This question
of relative merit plagued Wong.

"Be the poipers, if put to it I could not say. Wan is young and the other
is getting on for forty-five, but you are a better man than ayther."

"Which you tinkum blest--bad once good now, this time once, or bad once,
good once, bad again?"

"Sure, Wong, 'twould take a Philadelphia lawyer to unravel your meanings.
But do you mean that if a man was bad for half his life, is it better to
be the first half or the latter kind? That is a quischun for the bishops,
and they know as much as an eft, when all is said and done. It will be
aquil when we carry our hides to the tanyard, but," and Danny puffed
loudly, "if 'tis your own morals that are involved, sure, as me neebur,
'mould be more convenient to me if you gave me the reformed ind of your
career."

The sons wanted the troopers. Danny said, "What troopers but ourselves
would have anny chance against min in these ravines? We'll keep our eyes
open."

Cattle stealing did not cease. Two weeks after the picnic James Fullwood
rode in to say that a mob of his were missing and their tracks pointed
toward Dead Horse Plain.

"Your cattle are safe with O'Neill," said Danny. "I shall spind a night
with him this week, the man maybe is lonely."

"He might find it profitable to shut his eyes. I'd watch an old lag like
that."

"He let himself be employed once to do a dirty trick, but I'd trust a lot
of the old lags beyond those that employed them."

Fullwood ignored the imputation in this. He thought Delacy a fool, who
would trust any scoundrel, and went at once on the tracks of his own
cattle.

Before Delacy set out, O'Neill appeared to report the tracks of a mob not
ten miles from his hut--mixed cattle driven in the direction of Gool Gool
by two horsemen--as plain as a Government notice. Harry, William and
Doogoolook set off, but their efforts were defeated by a thunderstorm. To
catch the cattle lifters in the act now became the great endeavour at
Burrabinga.

Fullwood returned days later and said that most of the cattle were his.
He had tracked them to within ten miles of O'Neill's hut, and thence
towards the Snowy, but lost them because of a thunderstorm.

"This doesn't look like stopping till we are stripped," he said to Danny.
"It has been pulled off too easily. I'll inform the troopers, and I'll
make no bones of my suspicions of both Wong and O'Neill, not to mention
others."

"Then I'll postpone my suspicions. Too manny names maybe would moider the
troopers."

The trooper came with his tracker from Queanbeyan, but he had to depend
on the Delacys to lead him about. Doogoolook was better than the police
tracker. This inspired Harry, who was rampant for romantic adventure.

He and William took no one into their confidence, not even their bosom
friends the Anguses. They were not so bosom to William as to Robert,
because Tom had a more taking style with the girls. William was shy and
had a fear of making himself ridiculous. Thus while he looked longingly
on Janet Urquhart, her eyes were cast on Tom Angus, who could make her
laugh. With William she could find nothing to say. He, therefore, could
pick many faults in both the Anguses, and objected to young Ned hanging
around Della. He was alarmed that she was becoming an old maid, and the
boy's presence held grown men at a distance.

No cattle were removed during the ensuing weeks. No unaccounted person
either as fossicker or lyre-bird hunter was to be seen. William and Harry
unearthed families of wild horses from remote places and thought that the
cattle duffers must have gone elsewhere, when suddenly crows led them to
a tea-tree clump five miles from Wong's hut. Tracks ran to Wong's claim
and also in the direction of James Fullwood's hut. The hide could not be
mistaken, it was black on the sides and white on the back and belly.
Hoofs and head were not about, but could have been dragged away by
dingoes. The boys agreed to say nothing of their find, but cut out the
brand and took it home with them. They were beginners. Later in the day
James Fullwood missed the branded portion of the hide. His detective
efforts were being spoiled, so he rode in to ascertain what the Delacy
boys knew.

On the following morning William and Harry found that their evidence had
disappeared. They had not reckoned on the feats of a kangaroo dog when
they stuck the hide in the wall-plate of the veranda.

Fullwood put another spoke in their wheel through Bella. While she was
washing-up in the evening, he went to the kitchen on the excuse of a feed
for his dog. "Say, Bella," he began, tickling her and attempting a kiss,
"I want you to help me in a little bit of work--a woman's wits, you
know."

"Go orn! You'll make me squeak so Deller will hear, and she'll be out.
She's as jealous as a bear."

"What of?"

"Ole maids is always jealous. Lor', I wouldn't be an ole maid for
anything, I'd sooner take that gawky William."

"He wouldn't take you."

"Oh, wouldn't he, if I cocked half an eye at him."

"I'd rather take you myself that let you be wasted like that."

"Go orn. Old coves always talk loving and mean nothink...Wot was you
going to arsk me?"

"See here, you've heard of cattle being duffed about here?"

"The dust about it has died down. Whodone  it?"

"That's what I'm trying to discover, but these oafs blundered in and blew
the gaff. I found another of my beasts skinned, and was setting to watch
when they hacked the brand out.

"That was the piece of hide I found larst night. Stinking thing, was
stuck nearly in me face. I threw it in the fire. I larled till me sides
ached to see them looking for it, and thinking the kangaroo dogs ate it."

"You're a hard case," said Fullwood with admiration. "Next time they
bring home bits of hide I want you to save them for me. I suspect Wong
Foo and O'Neill, but these--mugs want to keep them as pets."

"What do I get for keeping the hide?"

"Don't you love me a little?"

"How much do you love me?"

"As much as you let me." Woman hungry, he swept the juicy Bella on to his
knee. Bella lacked experience but she made up in daring.

Some weeks later the Delacys put two pieces of hide high in the kitchen
rafters. Bella had to put a stool on the table to reach them. Though she
could not read, she knew the Delacy brands. She cunningly evolved the
pieces of the puzzle and threw the hide into the fire. Della came out to
inquire the cause of the odious smell. Bella was highly indignant at the
stuff being put in the rafters to fall on her head. "It hurted me, and it
stank." Forthwith she washed her head, and every one had to keep out of
the kitchen while she dried it before the fire. Only a hussy would allow
a man to see her with her hair flowing. Bella published her maidenly
modesty for the benefit of the virtuous William who had rebuked her
advances. Harry inquired through the door about the hide.

"Er course I burned the stinking stuff. It pilluted the kitchen. Miss
Deller was singing out about the smell. Full wop on me head! I might have
been stunned and have fell into the fire. And having to wash me head at
this time er night; might ketch me death er cold!" Bella hugged her glee.

Della could not put Bella in her place. She had not Johanna's confidence.
William and Harry had to begin all over again. It was not difficult, for
the cattle-duffer, like the dog in Proverbs, returned to his waywardness,
and there was high riding about the bush on the part of the amateur
troopers.

This time they felt so sure of their quarry that they arranged witnesses,
and whispered in the shed at night, or in their skillion bedroom
adjoining the girls'. Bella's ears were bush trained; she could hear like
a dog and listened with virtuosity. There was no wool over her eyes.
Instinctively she was against authority and resented the Delacy honesty
and irreproachable respectability. She was her mother's daughter, and old
mother Rafferty was notorious.

The young Delacys were all for the police, but Danny said, "Wanst you
begin law, it never ends, and law helps the wrong man much more than the
right one. To boot, it stirs up dangerous enemies."

The Anguses were not going to allow their cattle to be taken without
saying boo. Next their polo ponies would go, and they might as well
retreat from the district.

Two young men were to go for the police and two remain on watch. This
time the brands were put in a billy on the dining-room shelf for safety.
Bella chuckled as she hid the bundle in the ridge pole in the dark of the
stable, where one smell more would not he betraying. In case of accident,
she wore Della's boots on this errand.

At piccaninny dawn, the billy with the lid off was found rolling on the
floor, the dining-room door open and the hide gone. There was
recrimination for whoever had been careless. Della had gone out first and
confessed to leaving the door unlatched. The combined tracking ability of
the place could find no remnant of the parcel, nor any slot of dog in the
house precincts. The young men retreated to the shed for confabulation.

"You'd think it was a plot against the Roosians," said Danny, breaking in
on them. The confabulators stated their suspicions of a plot. There could
not have been three accidents to the pieces of hide.

"It looks pretty black against that Bella. She's been getting very bold
lately," said William.

"If she is in it, she would be acting cat's-paw for one of the min," said
Danny.

"And he's acting cat's-paw for the duffer."

"Whoever that is," said Danny.

"There is no doubt who that is," said Tom Angus, supported by William and
Harry.

"We must pay attintion to common sinse," said Danny. "You want to be
double-sure before you can be half-sure enough to lay a charge."

The many dogs, visiting and resident, bayed a loud announcement, and
James Fullwood approached out of the timber on the Keebah track. The
disturbed plovers ran stiltedly away and rose with protesting
tut-tut-tut-tuts from the tea-tree swamps. The men dispersed to their
horses.

Disgruntled by the loss of the hide, the Anguses said they were on their
way home. William, in his township suit, which Bella despised, felt
foolish. Noting the signs, Fullwood was a mass of curiosity.

Bella came to the back gate, ostensibly to give some meat to the dogs,
and made signs to Fullwood. "Oh, what a nice horse," she exclaimed.

Fullwood stepped toward the animal, which was hitched to the grindstone.
"Be careful, he is savage."

"I don't want him to know what fools we've been made," said William. The
others nodded.

Bella was patting the harmless horse's neck and muttering to Fullwood.
''I got them all safe, right from under their noses, when thev was all
off to the police to play old Harry."

"Got what?"

"You know--the pieces of hide you wanted."

"They're the softest louts I know. A cat could hocus them with dingo pups
for kittens. The Anguses must be splitting their sides with laughter, but
all the same, very relieved that you have saved them."

"Go orn!" said Bella, shrewdly narrowing her eyes and enlarging her
suspicions. In suspicions she rarely went astray, except with the
Delacys, who antagonized her. She suspected their honesty as hypocrisy,
while the hypocrisy of those practised in dissimulation of misdoing had
her ready applause.

"Get me the brands as soon as you can."

"I'd have to be terrible careful that they were all away on the run."

Fullwood rejoined the men. The meal was now ready, to which no invitation
was necessary.

"Better turn our horse out and stay the night," said Danny. After the
meal Tom Angus departed for Birrabee. To explain the town suit, William
said he was going with him to bring the mail from Keebah. It was six
weeks since Burrabinga had had any, also, William was famished for a
sight of Janet. Harry and Ned rode aimlessly out towards Bullock Gap with
their spoiled plan. Danny gave the stockmen a start for Dead Horse Plain
with a mob of horses that had come down from the highlands too early.
Fullwood lingered talking to Della and awaiting opportunity with Bella.
This came when she went to pen the calves for the night. They dawdled in
the cow bail.

"Now is your chance to get me those brands."

Women were scarce, and Bella was a tantalizing morsel to an ageing man.
She drove her terms and was fertile in stratagems. When preparing the
evening meal she said that Fullwood had been down to Heulong and had a
letter from her mother.

"It was like his cheek to forget it and not give it to me the mmute he
come," she declared as she handed it to Della to read.

"If Mr Fullwood has beens down without giving us a chance to send a
letter, I do think he's mean."

Bella's family was illiterate. Someone had acted as scribe. Bella was
informed that her mother was poorly, as an addition to the family was due
in about a month. Bella must come home at once to take care of the
smaller children.

"I'm going," said Bella, affecting to be perturbed. "Poor ole Mar is
forty-five; it might finish her this time."

Danny returned shortly afterwards. Fullwood explained that the letter had
been brought by a stray prospector, and that he also had received word
which made it imperative to go to Heulong. He could take Bella with him.

Delacy said he would take Bella. She demanded a pack-horse for her
belongings. "Arrah, you'll be back before you know it." One swag-bellied
old mare was given to Bella's packs and another to her person. Danny said
Della could have a holiday at Keebah. The four set out. Bella refused to
cheer up, and in the manner of the sullen, garnered propitiation. The
first night they scrambled up to Birrabee and surprised the Anguses, who
gave them camp welcome. The following day they reached Keebah. Delacy
felt it his duty to go on with Bella, but Fullwood asserted that the girl
would be equally safe with him. They would make on to the next
settler--twenty-five miles distant--and early the following day reach
Bella's parents on the left bank of the river.

Delacy was seduced by the rum and the talk at Keebah to let them go. "The
lass will be all right," said Urquhart. "If Fullwood, who is one of us,
can't take care of himself, he's a fule who deserves what he gets. And
it's a cold wet day with no comfort for canoodling. He! He! Hal Ha!"

The old mates had a spree, not quite so free as that nurtured by the
sympathetic Wong Foo. Mrs Janet's glare acted as a slight brake.
Intoxication brought no poison to the surface in Danny. He merely babbled
philosophical speculation, recited ballads and enjoyed a spate of
hyperbole, but alcohol in its lees had an inflammatory effect on Sandy.



CHAPTER XVII


The desolation of a camp mat is empty all day, enfolded Burrabinga
homestead with the loss of the two young women. Winter had come. The
mountain tops were white with snow, the gullies slippery with unmelted
frost. The icicles rose nightly like stubble on ungrassed spaces and
crunched underfoot. Callers ceased. The Delacy men were not driven by
table greed or other spurs to comfort. Their meals fell back to primitive
consistency. They shut up the house, awaiting the girls' return, and
pigged in the kitchen.

O'Neill sometimes lingered half a week when he beat his way down for
rations. In the glow of the big log fires scores of muzzles were whittled
from the light but tough woolly-butts, and thrown aside to dry for the
next weaning. Harry knew by heart the few books left by his final tutor;
Danny had read every line, including the advertisements, in newspapers of
London and Sydney, months old when packed up from Keebah. Ned Callahan, a
stockman, had a greasy song-book, dearly prized, from which Harry read
him the songs and to which Ned put tunes he had heard. He had an ear and
played hop-jigs and song-tunes on the mouth organ and jew's harp. He was
also a Grinling Gibbons with a pen knife. The Delacys had no
accomplishments. They had been reared only to bushcraft. William had no
other interest, but Harry was famishing for intellectual contacts. A few
great novels would have released him into another world.


Danny wearied of the winter routine and longed for Bewuck and Johanna, so
uttered his intention of going down the river. "Sure, you are big and
ugly enough to run the place till spring. You can make a trip to Keebah
to see Della, but don't ride the tails off all the horses."

Keebah would see them as soon as his back was turned for there lay their
magnets.

"None of this police business, no matter if the house is lifted off you
by the roots. I'm in a firmer position with the knowledge of the duffer
in me hand than if it is exploded. Is that clear beyond
misunderstanding?"

It was. Danny continued, "Sure, there's nothing to be done here now but
to keep dingoes down for their depredations among foals or calves that
will be dropped out of season, and the snaring of possums and wallaroos.
In your spare time you can make that new horse paddock, no more than
eighty acres. Keep it small so that horses can be handy for use
overnight. Pile up the logs so that it can't be jumped out of. You'll be
clearing the ground at the same time. _Absolvi meam animam_, so now I'll
be gone."

He chose two pack-mares to carry fine skins for Johanna. He had little
else to take her this time excepting a few nuggets exchanged by
prospectors for beef or horses, and a dozen prime specimens of
lyre-birds' tails. Doogoolook prepared himself. He had become a habit
with Delacy.

The whisky flask at Keebah was low; what remained was firmly held by Mrs
Janet for emergencies, so Delacy was saved from delay and surprised his
family one wintry dusk at the hour when the back log for the morning fire
was being taken into the kitchen by all the man power available armed
with crowbars. The sun had set without a fleck of clouds. The sky was a
frosty arch of electric pallor deepened on the eastern rim by rose tinged
with blue, and lightened along the western ranges by the gleam of
nacreous turquoise. He descended with whip-crack and halloa, his dogs
loping ahead to make trouble with the Bewuck pack and dispersing the
jackasses sitting on low snags awaiting a belated grub. "Here's your
father," exclaimed Johanna, and ran in her old eager way to meet him.

"Me brave Johanna, are you all well?" Danny dismounted and removed the
pipe.

"That can't mean much to ye," said Johanna with spirit. "It's a widow
I've been off and on for years."

"That's more so with me than you, I'm thinking," he said with a
self-conscious grin.

"It's lucky I am to have a fine son."

Robert, Maeve. and Norah came forward and dispersed uneasiness. Danny
observed how striking a man Robert had grown.

Danny changed his clothes, brushed his hair, and felt subdued to a mere
guest at his own table, where Robert presided with flourish.

Talk loosened during the evening, though Robert was not a talker. He
rarely explained. He went across to Hannon's on pretext of business,
leaving his father with the women. Johanna liked to gossip, or read the
new paper that had started in the Township.

"Make ye'r father a bed in the ind room, he will be tired from riding all
day," she said to Norah.

Danny was chilled and disappointed. Time had emancipated Johanna from the
urge for a husband, but Danny was not yet released from sex.

Johanna had much to tell, so she began, "I don't know that I should
bother to tell ye. I've been deserted in the eyes of the country for half
me life."

"You could have paid me a visit; and you never sent me a letter."

"That cuts the other way round, I'm thinking."

"Sure, what had I to report but tigrinizing about the scrub with horses
and cattle. It was you that had all the news; and sure, didn't we sind a
letter by Bella when she came down; and did James Fullwood sind on the
two old mares?"

"What's this about Bella coming down? And in that case what have ye done
with me daughter--left her to be the prey of dingoes and stray min in
ye'r owld Bunratty Castle?"

"Have you heard if Old Mother Rafferty has had another child?"

"Sure, what is that but a regular occurrence this twinty-five years or
more. It's nearly as common as old Rafferty going on the spree, and more
regular, surely it's come to an ind at last, and ye'r concern is rather
late."

"But James Fullwood brought Bella down more than a month ago to be with
her mother for the purpose designated."

"The river has been high, and 'twould not occur to such tag-rag to inform
their betters about what they should know."

"I'll find out to-morrow."

"And where is Della?"

"With Mrs Urquhart till Bella comes back."

"Are ye marrying her on wan of the Urquharts?"

"'Twill take more than me to marry Della to anny one. She has a distant
way with her to all men."

Johanna heard this with satisfaction, and divulged that the second Butler
boy, Stewart, wanted to marry Norah, and that she and Mrs Butler were
both satisfied. It only remained for the fathers to come to terms.

In the morning Danny saw that Robert's management still furthered
elegancies at the expense of fundamentals. The cutting was accepted as
necessary for Johanna's carriage, also the pointed palings around her
garden, but there was stable and carriage accommodation, for which
clearing and cultivation had been neglected.

"It is not necessary to be pampering horses, like in the old country. If
they can thrive in the open at Burrabinga, this would be like the tropics
by comparison." He was confronted by the showy gig. "Whoi? What..." He
looked towards the carriage house. The door was open upon vacancy.
"Where's your mother's conveyance?"

"She lent it to Mrs Fitzhugh."

"And why should Mrs Fitzhugh be provided with a carriage by your mother?"

"She's Mrs Fullwood's sister."

"Och, I remimber now. Sure, 'tis your mother's business what she does
with her own carriage, but I must find the rights of it. Is this vehicle
Mrs Fitzhugh's?"

"No. I got it for a mere song to take Ma out a little. Her health was
suffering from the years of confinement."

Danny muttered, "Oh, moi, oh, moi," to himself, and saddled a mare for
inspection farther afield. He was astonished by the number of milch cows
and the flocks of turkeys.

"Do you do the milking?"

"I haven't time. Maeve and Hannon and his old woman do that. I reckon it
pays better to see that others don't loaf than to do everything by
one-man power."

Danny was further surprised by so many Bedouins. "Did the Anguses come
out and me not to be told?"

"No. These came when you sent the draft together."

"And why are they devouring winter grass here?"

"Huh! They pay better than cows. Norah has kept books. There's a chap I
knew at school, his father runs the bazaar in Sydney and has the right
connection."

"Moi, oh, moi!" repeated Danny, overwhelmed, but not convinced that the
business was sound. He spent the day outside. A virile man did not remain
indoors unless there were women guests or it was Sunday or there was a
deluge or he had a broken leg. He had to confess, though with private
reservations, that Robert "had a head on him".

That evening Stewart Butler came to see Danny, whose tracks through
Glenties had been reported. After supper Norah and he were permitted the
sedate occupancy of the "parlour"--Johanna's prized elegancy--while the
parents had the dining-room fire. Robert went over to Hannon's hut to
talk horses. He could not talk to his father. Maeve, looking old and
worn, had Doogoolook in the kitchen, where she showed him pictures in a
London periodical. Convention did not permit Norah and her affianced to
intervals hermetically sealed in their own society. Norah emerged at
intervals on some maidenly pretext, or Danny or Johanna intruded to make
specific inquiry, or to mend the fire.

One of these interruptions was to ask Butler if he had heard of James
Fullwood being home a month before to bring Bella Rafferty.

Mrs Butler employed one of the girls younger than Bella, but Stewart had
not heard of Bella or Fullwood being down. Charles Fullwood had been
away, some said, dealing in cattle and taking them to Victoria. So prized
was news that the whole region would speedily know that Delacy was down
from the mountains. It was puzzling that James Fullwood's visit and
Bella's homecoming had escaped attention.

"Sure, the punt is washed away, and it puts people in prison," remarked
Johanna.

"I had forgotten the mournful crying of the wind in the oaks."

"Didn't it nearly kill me getting used to them, and now the night is
empty away from them? I had to take banshees for me familiars and become
the aquil of black haythens for want of better company."

"But think of the cramped life in Ireland--and here the width and
freedom."

"The width and freedom with native dogs is such that it defeats
civilization in the loneliness."

Danny felt that it was time to be mending the fire in the parlour. On
returning he asked Johanna why Mrs Fitzhugh should be wearing out the
carriage.

Johanna advanced her hopes for Robert and Grace Fullwood. "Surely you'd
never help things on with that sawny bean-pole?"

"My Robert has looks enough for two."

"And too manny for himself, I'm thinking," grunted Danny, depositing his
dottle in the fire and beginning on a fresh plug. "It is the family.
Beauties don't always make the best wives."

"It's the family I'm against."

"Now what could anny sane man have against the Fullwoods? They visit at
Cobbramorragong as well as at Camerons of The Plains, and _they_ have never
come here."

"That's because we are not rich enough. Whin it coines to breed, me
family is better than anny of them for education and principle."

"Och, if I didn't keep ye up a little ye'd soon slip back to the
emancipists."

"There's manny an ex-ticket-of-leaver I'd rather be allied with than the
Fullwoods, though they might be of the nobility and visit on royalty."

"Ye'd maybe prefer Hennessy of the public house?"

"Hennessy, when all is said, never hired a felon to beat me up and oust
me cattle from their run. Hennessy is as foine a man as can be met in the
Colony, a rale man, not like these whining down-looking Fullwoods, who
can only honk and hah through their 'noses. They never look you in the
face."

"I despise bold glaring men like Walter Moore. I had to fight to preserve
meself from him."

"Well, now, Johanna, 'tis no use of getting at cross-purposes over a
bottle of smoke. What is behind these veiled observations about Hennessy
as a substitute for Fullwood in the matrimonial sense?"

"I saw passages between Robert and Molly McCathie that showed he had
better see something higher.. Boys are romantic at that age, and 'tis
time he was settled."

"Of the two evils I prefer Molly, and of the two prospective
fathers-in-law Hennessy is the best man."

"A lag."

"He was lagged for struggling for freedom. When I see the way some of
these jumped-up squireens look down their noses and say a man is Irish,
I'm counting it an honour to a man who had the pride and indipindince to
want Ireland cleared of the English, a milk-and-water, conceited breed,
with great proclivities for grasping the globe and pretinding that it is
for the good of those they dispossess."

"Wan might as well try to rayson with the wind as with ye, Daniel Delacy."

"It's yourself cannot reason. After all, what is the use of us bickering
here? The young people might be settling their affairs in the way we did.
Has Robert shown anny predilection for Grace?"

"'Tis Grace that is eating her heart for him."

Johanna would think that all the country wanted her precious son. Danny
was more interested for the moment in ascertaining if Bella had been
landed at home sound in limb and virtue. She was his particular
responsibility. "To-morrow I go to the Township to straighten me
business. Will you go with me, Johanna?"

"'Tis too cold across those plains these short days."

Danny invited Robert to ride with him, but Robert said he could not spare
the time just then. "How often do you go in?"

"I can't remember when I was in last--a couple or three months ago."

Danny was pleased that Robert did not waste his time around town.
Doogoolook prepared himself to accompany his master, but was sent instead
to discover if Bella were safe. This had to depend on signs as the
Raffertys were illiterate.


Danny found Mrs Fitzhugh established at Hennessy's. She refused to be
marooned on the other side of the Murrumbidgee in winter. La, she was
used to lively society, not that of dingoes and possums interspersed with
blackfellows. The censorious sneered at her husband-hunting, illogically,
when any woman evading marriage was considered abnormal or a failure.

Mrs Fitzhugh had her own sitting-room to which she retreated when smitten
with an attack of de Vere. Otherwise she dined at the public table to
inspect the squatters who blew in on the way from Riverina. Her sister
deplored the money spent in hotel residence, but Euphemia said that the
bogtrotter Hennessy was delighted to make nominal terms for one who gave
distinction to his wretched backblocks shanty. Hennessy was pleased with
her mounting bill. Their designs upon each other, though obvious to
onlookers, were ludicrously veiled from both schemers.

Euphemia was interested to meet Delacy of Bewuck and Burrabinga, of whom
there were many diverting tales, and whom Hennessy advertised as the most
honest and fearless man on the Murrumbidgee. Oh, that she had had someone
in whom to confide her first impressions of that shrimp of a being
thumping along on one leg: with a long black beard; and slop clothes some
sizes too large for him! La, what a country! And this spectacle aspired
to be father-in-law to her niece! So deplorably Irish! He made her
hilarious. She anticipated no difficulty in retaining her carriage. Such
an object would be hat-in-hand to court her favour. She impressed him by
her gaiety and dashingly crinolined swagger, while she regretted a
loutish society which provided none to appreciate her expression behind
her fan. Had Johanna been more cordial to Danny he would have had more
effulgence to loose on Mrs Fitzhugh. As it was, he treated her to
political dissertations, demanding of her, as a comparatively recent
arrival, information and response which she was too hare-brained to give.
He was not obtuse to her sense of her own superiority, and she was
sobered before the end of the meal. "Me wife has lent you her carriage, I
understand," he remarked before withdrawing.

"It was quite obliging of her."

"I'm thinking it might have been better to lend it to some poor woman who
needed it, and not to you who has so many fine friends waiting on you."

Mrs Fitzhugh did not know how this was intended. She was too little a
lady, too much a self-seeking snob to return the carriage with gracious
thanks.

"How lately have you been at Heulong?" Danny inquired. "Not for months. I
got away before the river rose."

"Then you did not see James Fullwood when he was down?'

"He has not been down or my sister would have mentioned it. We get the
post and parcels across quite often in the boat."

"It's dayvilish mysterious," thought Danny, and stumped away to find
Hennessy, who was waiting for him in his private room behind the bar. He
could give no information about James Full-wood, but had other business
which soon put Bella out of Danny's head.

"If Oi could hev got away, Oi'd hev taken a thrip up to see ye, not
wantin' to commit impoortant matter to a letter."

Danny removed the pipe to receive a communication with such a prelude.
The trouble was concerning Robert and Hennessy's niece, Molly McCathie.

"In the name of God!" ejaculated Delacy, thoroughly upset, as Hennessy
presented the shameful details of such cases. Robert had been found in
Molly's room at an ungodly hour; she had been sent to the Sisters at the
Convent in Goulburn; matters could he mended by marriage. "Sure, I had
other ideas, and thim a little betther," he continued, gaining confidence
as he perceived the consternation of Delacy. "But seeing phwat has
happened, I can do no other. That young divvil of yours has so much
swagger that the girls is bloinded on behowlding him. Sure, he's so flash
in full feather that it would take coloured specs to protect the ois."

Hennessy was called away to quell a disturbance in the bar. Danny
pondered the evidence. Johanna had spoken of Molly, and Robert had kept
away from town for some months. With his gig and plated harness and
tandem Bedouins!

Hennessy returned.

"I must have time to inquire into the rights of this. I'll condemn no man
unheard, not even me own son; but me own son, if it is proven against
him, shall do justice to anny woman--black, whoite or green," said
Delacy. He did not take his noggins that evening nor become loud in
poetical recitation and political discussion.

Hennessy counted upon the Delacy integrity. "It could be a very good
match," he said. "Oi'll treat her as me own daughter. Oi'll be
open-handed because it is your son. Afther all, 'tis a vaynial sin for
the gossoons and colleens to be fond of wan another. We've been young
ourselves, Danny Delacy."

"I was never young to that extent, _Mister_ Hennessy."

Hennessy took the hint in the emphasis on the mister as he replied, "But
in this new counthry, Mr Delacy, things have broadened considerably.
Shure, Molly is fit to wed wid anny wan in these jumped-up Colonies.
She's been eddicated as well as your son, and that's betther than anny
wan else in the disthrict."

"I'll sleep on it," said Delacy.

He lay awake for an hour or two--an unusual state for him. Hennessy's
declarations and demands were a blow. He could not be sure of Robert, and
Johanna had to be faced. Also, despite his theories, he had his
pride--pride in honesty of breed, and he did not welcome as a
daughter-in-law the niece of a convict. Molly's parents were unknown, at
least to any one but Hennessy. She might be a by-blow of Hennessy's, or
worse, and she was a Roman Catholic. Delacy was so honest that he would
have preferred the daughter of a humble man of principle to that of a
scoundrel grandee, and he was all for helping the erring to re-establish
themselves, but lie did not enjoy the prospect of alliance with the
disreputable.



CHAPTER XVIII


Danny returned to Bewuck so early on the following day that Johanna
inquired what was the matter.

"Me business was finished. There was nothing to hang around for. And I am
curious that nothing has been heard of Fullwood and Bella Rafferty."

Doogoolook came home at evening. He had crossed in the Quebarra boat,
nine miles down, and let the horse swim. He had no news. Bella was
nowhere to be seen, nor the two mares who should by now have been
morganatically awaiting young Nullah-Mundoeys at Bewuck.

Robert, sick with uneasiness, awaited his father's return. Shrinking from
the inevitable reckoning, he had ridden home with Stewart Butler to look
at a colt. Danny was relieved to hear this. He, too shrank from the
encounter. In a way he was glad of the lesser problem of Bella, and
announced his intention of swimming the river on the morrow and riding to
Heulong and Rafferty's to settle the matter.

"Ye'll get your death of cramp in the river. There's no need to be in a
flurry over that streel. She'll be setting herself up somewhere on the
strength of my training, and telling a cock and bull tory about her
escape from Bunratty Castle."

Danny was not to be deterred. In the morning he saddled the
river-crosser--a tall old grey--and tying-up a head bundle went down to
the dark swirling waters, a man in the fifties with but one leg, but who
retained his nerve.

"Mother of God! Will ye never gather a little common sense? An eft would
be an elephant to ye in common sense. What ever has come to that Rafferty
streel, another day or two wouldn't worsen it."

Danny had his bundle on his head, the string held in his teeth. With a
muffled arrah he drove the hunched and protesting grey forward to the
girth, the veteran feeling his way and keeping his feet nearly to the
farther bank, where he swam bravely and completed a safe crossing.
Doogoolook exposed his teeth in a silent laugh of admiration. His chief
was invincible.

Neither of the Fullwood men was at home, so Danny was for holding all
arley on horseback and departing. Mrs Fullwood was too kindly and
hospitable for that. She brought out a crutch that had been used by James
when he cut his foot with an adze. Grace was also desirous of being
helpful. They were eager for news of Bewuck.

"Are Della and Bella Rafferty still in the mountains?" Mrs Fullwood
inquired.

Danny saw that nothing would be gained by telling of Bella's
disappearance. He let her slide for the moment. He found that Mrs
Fullwood had not seen James for months and that Charles had been up in
the mountains for nearly all the past summer Delacy was surprised by this
news. Charles was away now. It was a disappointing visit to Grace, as
Danny never mentioned Robert.

Leaving Heulong, Delacy turned the grey towards Learmont, a settler
between Heulong and Keebah, where he arrived about nine o'clock, and,
while being fed, learned that the Learmonts knew nothing of Bella or
Fullwood. Danny remarked that he had expected Fullwood to leave two old
mares there, and said nothing of Bella. He loathed scandal as the plague,
and was careful not to start any.

All that day Johanna watched the crossing until it was dark, and Norah
persuaded her that Danny had remained at Heulong. Robert returned at
dusk, much relieved to find that his father was not at home, and to
estimate that Danny had not divulged anything. The evil hour was
postponed. He had already been arraigned by Hennessy, and had taken a
defiant stand.

Johanna's vigil was rewarded next afternoon. Danny had pressed himself
and the grey to outstrip additional waters on the way from farther up.
Robert wished that his father would catch pneumonia and be too ill to
bring him to judgment. Danny arrived with his teeth chattering and blue
with cold, but a change of clothes and a nip of rum before the fire soon
made him ready for a hearty meal, while he told the latest instalment of
the Bella Rafferty serial.

"She must have eloped with old Jimmy," said Robert. "They could not both
have fallen down a precipice."

Danny wrote to William and dispatched Doogoolook. The boys were bidden to
go out to James Fullwood's and do everything to find out where Bella had
been taken.


Danny was now ready to address Robert. He waited until after supper and
took possession of the kitchen.

"Well, Robert, Hennessy has laid a charge against you that never thought
would be laid against son of me own. Have you anything to say for
yourself?"

"If you are going to believe what an old lag..."

"It's when a man has no case that he resorts to abusing the other side. I
asked, have you anything to say for yourself?"

"What is Hennessy saying?"

"Had you no words of your own with Hennessy?"

"He's been trying to rope someone in for that bitch of a Molly, and I'm
one that's been attacked, if that is what you mean. He hasn't a leg to
stand on; she's the town harlot."

"Now, look here," said Danny, removing his pipe, the better to emphasize
his words, "another low thing is to blayguard a young woman as a way out
of your own sins, if you have had anny gifts from her."

For all his brazen air, Robert's heart was thumping against his chest. He
could hear the river and the oak fronds weeping in the night, and wished
that he was a little boy again plunging in the bunyip hole with
Doogoolook, and never a thought of girls, blast them! "Every one knows
what that Molly is."

"What I am concerned with is your own behaviour. Have I ever taught you
to make others the keeper of your actions as a decent citizen? Have you,
or have you not, had certain relations with Molly McCathie?"

"Aw, we had a lark or two with her. She let us go too far, but there were
half a dozen in it."

"It's true then, that you have had relations with Molly McCathie in
accordance with Hennessy's allegations?"

"He just picked on me."

"What others do you accuse?"

"Gerald Butler and Tom Angus and Branston and Aubrey Fullwood to name a
few. Athol Macallister was the one who started it."

"How came this?"

"After a bit of a dance one night in the Hall beside the store, we might
have been a little on, not being used to liquor. Molly only put me to bed
in her room to save waking the old man, and he got toothache or something
in the night and came in. I never did her any harm. Old Hennessy is mad
to get up in the social stirrups and he picks on me because he knows you
will be the softest to handle."

Danny put hint through a searching cross-examination, and so hammered
home the enormity of "tampering with army girl--black, whoite or green",
that Robert's bravado was plucked and he was left in the undergarments of
shame.

"I've heard you and Hennessy separately," concluded Danny. "The next is
to bring you face to face and see how you stand up then. 'Twill be the
girl's turn next. No accusations will ver be laid involving me family's
character but I'll clear them up. If you have incurred anny
responsibility, by the Lord Harry, me boy, you'll discharge it. You'll
ride in to Hennessy with me to-morrow.

"I won't," said Robert flatly. "Why should I lick-spittle after a ---- old
lag because he is acting as a criminal to me?"

"I'll concede your point. Hennessy shall come here."

"If he comes here Ma will onder why, and it will upset her."

"It's too late to think of your mother's health now."

Robert's experience at college in Sydney made him contemptuous of his
father's narrow standards, though none so desirous of esteem as he, and
he crumpled at the prospect of being the oaf to hold the parcel in a
company affair. Unconvicted of sin he feared only ridicule, and would
have sold his soul to keep the matter secret.

Molly was equally unabashed spiritually or socially, though such generous
behaviour as hers to lovers was not made safe by science for unmarried
women until a later generation. A lady of pleasure was in a plight but
trusted to extricate herself by marriage. Robert really was in danger.
Her favourite was Athol, son of old Bandy Macallister of Curragoobill,
and half a dozen other stations from the Murray to the Darling. Bandy was
cynical and vulgar, and able to drive a bargain. His only legitimized son
was the wildest blackguard unlicked, and the bullet-headed whip who drove
tandem with such dash that the dazzled Robert had taken him as a model.

In time Robert had been able to drive a tandem of Bedouins through the
Township when Athol was there to behold, and be conquered. He made an
offer. Robert refused. Athol must have those dun beasts with the silver
manes and tails, no matter what the cost or conditions. Robert pursued
his advantage. Athol made him a familiar, but such was Robert's
up-bringing that he would not take Athol home to Norah.

He brought Gerry Butler to Athol, and both lads imitated Athol's
gracelessness. Athol led in appreciation of Molly's satisfying charms.
All her paramours remembered her as long as they lived, and grinned with
glee when they met her. Molly adored Athol, but drunk or sober, she could
not noose him into marriage. He was the kind of rapscallion to hold all
women lightly unless proved under test. He would kiss a servant girl as
soon as look at her, and seduce her as a sporting incident. Casuahies in
virtue were entirely a feminine responsibility in his philosophy.

He was the supreme example of all the masculine insolence of the bloods
of his decade. He jeered at Gerald and Robert for being old maids, and
led them after him on thoroughbreds, jumping in and out of the flower
gardens fronting the straggling main street of the Township and of
Queanbeyan and of Cooma. They likewise followed his lead in the lark of
breaking the crockery in one or two shanties, when Robert, due to fear of
his father's principles, had to pay. In Athol's company the two young men
first became drunk--taking lessons in how to carry liquor like a swell.
Blood horses, kangaroo dogs and greyhounds, guns, plated harness, top
boots and cabbage tree hats at £7/10/- or £15 each, all the squatter
swagger, which embellished drinking, swearing and wenching, came natural
to Athol. He was protected by the conventions in virility of the times,
and by old Bandy's wealth. He was wild where his imitators could not
ascend above flashness. There were plenty to say: "There's no harm in
young Mac at bottom," though he was but a simian in human shape,
graceless and uncivilizable.

When a scapegoat was needed, he cunningly had one. Robert was left in
Molly's arms after a certain debauch. The best fun had been in leading
Hennessy to find him there. Athol had blundered up and down the passage
to awaken the old terrier, and when he emerged blinking with his candle,
he saw Athol near Molly's door. Hennessy demanded admittance to Molly's
room and found Robert.

"Too dead to the world to be dangerous, but that, by helll akes it
funnier." Athol cackled as he told his crew in Sydney.

"Christ! But it must have been rich," they agreed.

Athol ran gaily away with his Bedouin tandem, for which he had paid £250
in cash; but ah, he had his revenge for that. Robert would need more than
£250 before he was done. Molly pleaded and pleaded. Athol showed her
letters around with inflated swagger, and told her he wanted no wife who
was found asleep with dirty young Irish dogs like Bob Delacy.

Hennessy had the measure of Athol, and was relieved that Robert was so
fullv compromised. Molly. made desperate and revengeful by Athol's
repudiation, let her uncle have his head. If he could make Robert marry
her, she was willing. Too uncertain of consequences to claim innocence,
she was obstinately silent. Hennessy sent her to Goulburn for safety, and
started on Robert.


The interview with Robert. Hennessy and Danny was disastrous to Robert's
case. The facts were incontrovertible as stated by Hennessy, with the
housekeeper's corroboration.

"You must bring the girl out to my place, and me wife and I will
interrogate her," said Delacy, "first by herself and then with you and
Robert present...I'll be thankful to have me wife's carriage brought home.
Hospitality can go too far for them that's not worth it--not meaning you,
Hennessy."

He marched away with dignity, notwithstanding his sloppy clothes and
peg-leg. It was Robert, in the panoply of unmarred youth and smart gear,
who was shorn of swagger. Hennessy was satisfied with his progress. The
Delacys would kick for a while, but he would set the young folks up and
then use the connection for every ounce that it would yield, Mrs Fitzhugh
his next objective. He regretted the youthful rebellion that had put
ostracizing wales on his back. There was now no cause for rebellion in
Australia. The Irish famine in the 'forties had exterminated those
members of his family who had not escaped to Canada or the United States.
Poor old Ireland was in a hopeless mess, but in the Colonies a man had
outlet for ambition and energy. Hennessy meant to go up and up, all
obstacles but a spur to endeavour.


"Your mother will have to know. Will you tell her or shall I?"

"I'll tell her myself," said Robert sulkily.

"And I'll be present."

Robert was thus cornered to divulge the fact of discovery in Molly's bed
at 3 a.m. "I was drunk, was the reason. Gerry Butler, Athol Macallister,
Aubrey Fullwood, Tom Angus and' I all went in together, but I was not
used to drink, and it made me dizzy. There was no harm, really. The
others went out when I went to sleep. Molly does nothing but throw
herself at men. She is playing her cards now to land me."

Danny's comment was a loud "Humph!"

"Mother of God, have mercy, that such a thing could befall me son!"
shrieked Johanna, in such grief and excitement as Danny had not
previously seen from her. He was dazed.

Robert thought he had driven his mother mad and was scared to hysteria.
He put his arms about her and tried to quieten her, "I swear, Ma, I am
innocent. We were just daring each other to get drunk to see what it was
like."

"I know that hussy!" Johanna screamed between paroxysms. "I've seen her
at work to capture me innocent son, and him trapped in a net. God help
me, that I should have come to this! It is a just punishment...And what
are ye doing, Daniel Delacy, to save ye'r son from the clutches of that
foul harpy, and that criminal, Hennessy?"

Danny's statement that he had investigated so as to have justice in hand
and had discovered Robert's culpability, brought a fresh outburst. It did
not move Danny fundamentally. He considered it on a par with Johanna's
marital aberration, and thought that if he had met that firmly she might
not now have been so wild. Justice he would have and was so reasonable
that he knew all the virtue would not be on one side, even with his son.

"Peace, woman!" he said at last. "Nothing more can be done till we hear
what the girl has eto say."

"What she says! She should never be let open her mouth again to her
betters. If such a slut ever comes near me, I'll tear her eyes out by the
roots."

"Come now, Johanna, if the case was your own daughter led astray by the
love of some young man, and she motherless and fatherless, wouldn't your
heart break if there was no justice for her?"

"Ye to name wan like that with ye'r own daughter--shame on ye!"

"Your daughters had you to look after them."

"'Tis plain they would never have had ye in army trouble. And where is me
daughter now? And where is that surrvant I trained for her among the
dingoes?"

Danny was tempted to interject that Bella had been put in charge of one
of the aristocratic Fullwoods, but felt it more than his position as a
husband would carry.

"And ye to be tigrinizing about after Hennessy's by-blow--no father and
mother! None that can be mentioned at all events." When Robert recovered
from his alarm, his mother's attitude was an immense satisfaction to him.
Danny shut his long stained teeth hard and stumped away on other
business. Johanna's outburst had unmanned him, but did not deflect him
from procedure necessary to the upholding of character. The next move was
Hennessy's. The girl had to be brought from Goulburn.

"Ye'r father increases in oddity till sometimes I don't know what to
think of him," Johanna observed to Norah, in making a report in which
Robert's liability was unscrupulously minimized.

"That Molly was always an odious, forward creature, who tried to put
herself on a level with every one," observed Norah, fearful lest her
precious Stewart might also have been contaminated.

Men's indulgence with certain women beneath respect was known to take
place, but when it happened with a member of any circle, the
accommodating female was known for an enemy and could be given no quarter
by self-respecting ladies.



Chapter XIX


Danny tried to offset his uneasiness by furious action, but found that
Bewuck was Robert's. Every one looked to Robert as the boss, even the
dogs. Danny's special servitors forsook him to run after Robert, in spite
of the wars this entailed. The canine fraternity are psychologists, and
in selecting Robert, dogs knew that only against their master could
lese-majesty be committed. The other Delacys imposed humiliating
discipline on their dogs, but Robert's personality, as it ripened,
compelled other people to guard against his servitors' depredations or to
suffer them as quietly as possible.

Deprived of more urgent business, Danny crossed the Murrumbidgee again on
the Bella business. Johanna raised no protest this time. She hid in her
bedroom and waited anxiously until Maeve announced that Danny was safely
across. She laughed grimly at the worry about Bella. "Another streel who
can take care of herself to the injury of others, or she wouldn't he true
to her breed. Your father deserves the pair of treasures he has on his
hands now."

Robert was disquieted by the impending private meeting with his mother,
which could no longer be evaded when she had the fire lighted in the
drawing-room that evening and summoned him. "And now, my son, tell me how
ye came to be trapped. Ye will never be so innocent among wolves
hereafter."

Robert, affecting candour, told little, but made a plausible defence. He
had already admitted the intoxication. He considered that Gerry Butler,
Athol Macallister and the others had gone too far with Molly, and when
they were in danger of old Hennessy, had rigged the evidence on him.

"That wily old wretch will stop at nothing to crawl nto a good family.
God help us, and your father no more use than a broken umbrella in a
thunderstorm to withstand him."

"I'll clear out to Queensland where thev can't get hold of me."

"If Grace should hear of it, 'twill distress the poor girl; but if she's
worthy of ye, 'twill be a nice little test."

Robert was indifferent to Grace's attitude for or against him, but was
too diplomatic to say so. "In any case, I'll o awav to Queensland for a
spell. Urn full-up of Bewuck. It's a tin-pot hole. Out on the Darling
Downs..."

"Have I not endured enough in the furthest wilds from civilization
without me heart to be torn from me by me eldest son going where it is
like an oven all the time, and with the cannibal lacks eating ye, and the
fever at ye."

Robert would almost as soon have married Molly as fulfil his threat, but
young men in New South Wales were making it as their fathers had cited
the Antipodes.

"Would ye be running with ye'r tail between ye'r legs, like wan of the
curs out there, and leaving the field to the lags and their bastards?
Shame on ye, Robert! That would be to admit ye were guilty, and that I
never would do, even if ye were--not to sweepings like that, or they
would soon be in the stirrups, and their betters in the gutter."


Delacy had no pleasant prospect as he approached the Raffertys. They were
of objectionable quality. The mother's easy virtue was a byword,
therefore they would make a noise about their daughter, and by damn!
where were Bella and Fullwood?

The Raffertys came streaming to meet Mr Delacy, and held his stirrup and
hampered him in alighting, noisomely servile and genuinely hospitable and
eager for news. Their hut was squalid. They were shepherds for Wells, a
squatter adjoining Old Glenties, and under the Act had selected a few
acres around their abode. They treated clogs, pigs and fowls as equals.
Mrs Rafferty's hair was matted and verminous, her dress filthy and
tattered.

"Begob, and 'tis ye'rself, Mr Delacy, that is the kind gintleman to come
all this way around to inform me of me darlint Bella. And how is the
darlint gurrl? And it's blissed she was to be trained by ye'r dear
woife--a dear koind lady if iver there was wan. 'God bless her!' sez Oi to
Mrs Rafferty at the toime, Oi did, ''tis the chance of a loife-time.'"

The woman was less effusive but equally servile. It was difficult for
Delacy to open, but he was justly known as Danny the brave. The deterring
factor was the likelihood of the woman's false grief. For what might he
not be blamed to disturb an expectant mother, though she was a notorious
polyandrist? He withdrew Rafferty, "To talk about a bull, Rafferty, and
that no lady's subject."

Mrs Rafferty retreated in a "refined" manner taking some of the smaller
youngsters with her. At a hint from Delacy, Rafferty threatened with a
kick the bigger ones.

"Did ye send a letter to Bella by James Fullwood about three weeks past?"

"Divvil a wan of the Fullwoods have we seen for months."

"I do not wish to disturb your wife with something that maybe can be
cleared up," Delacy continued, and related the circumstances of Bella's
disappearance.

"Begob!" said Rafferty. He suspected that he had no responsibility for
Bella's being, and had been glad to be free from her tongue, but he had a
property claim on her. "Ye did wrong, Mr Delacy, not to bring her on
ye'rself, ye having promised the mother to guard her as wan of ye'r own."

"But Fullwood--a man of years--and coming straight down."

"Min of years are none too safe--but he shall be made to pay--he must be
follered and made to pay."

"I've sent me black boy with instructions to me sons. I went meself as
far as Learmont's."

"I thrimble at the thought of telling me poor wife. Her sowl is wrapped
up in that darlint gurrl. If she is rooned, 'twill be a bad dav for all
concerned. They'll be made to pay, and to the limit. Ye'll come to tell
me owld woman."

Danny did not balk, though he nearly gasped as he endured the
unrestrained and fetid blasts of Mother Rafferty's tongue.

"Shure, ivirv wan concerned will be made to pay," was Rafferty's
monotonous reiteration.

"I'll do me best to clear it up," said Delacy.

The female Rafferty continued to vituperate in fluent Cockney about the
ruination of her child. The male Rafferty kept on and on that everv one
should be made to pay.

Delacy rode away followed by execrations, and murmuring to himself,
"There's a cask of maggotty meat for you!"

At nine o'clock the Bewuck household heard his halloas above the
Murrumbidgee. "Save us!" exclaimed Johanna. "Is that your father, and the
river up, and as cold as ice, and him for ever thinking he's as young as
he was in 'fifty-two, swimming the Yackandandah, and it the dark of the
moon? Sure, he's stark mad."

"He'll be all right," said Robert. "You couldn't kill him with an axe.
The grey could do the crossing in hobbles."

The crisp stars faintly showed the rushing water in the deep gorge. A
small wind cancelled frost and sighed in the casuarinas' mermaid tresses.
The curlews retreated wailing. The plovers protested noisily. All the
dogs howled or yelped. Danny loved their welcoming commotion. Johanna was
nervous.

Robert was not alarmed for his father's safety. His sudden disappearance
would have been a relief. Danny had never demanded affection from his
sons, and at present he was in the position of a judge. Robert and Maeve
went out with lanterns and soon the traveller was casting extra logs on
his roaring fire, while the drenched horse shivered without reward or
care under the frosty sky.

Danny was not communicative about the Rafferty episode. He remarked that
the letter had been a ruse. The Raffertys had not heard from Bella.

"Most likely she's run off with somewan as soon as ye'r back was turned,"
observed Johanna.

"It's for the police now. If annything has happened to her and it not
reported, 'mould look queer on mv part."

He took so much rum on going to bed that he awakened late next morning,
and his stump of a leg was paining as though nails were being driven into
it. Two immersions in icy waters during a long day without food had been
too much.

"There's a wind sweeping clown from Monaro all laden with gusts of
sleet," Johanna reported.

"Sure, I have a cold as long as a wet week. Wan day more won't hurt Bella
either way." He made a noise about his rare indisposition, and doctored
himself with one remedy more drastic than the other in such quick
succession that only an invincible stomach could have escaped
disturbance.

In the evening a messenger arrived with a letter from Hennessy stating
that he had brought Molly from Goulburn, and that she was ready to meet
Delacy and Robert. The messenger was put up for the night.

"Shall I send word for Hennessy to bring the girl out here?"

"Ye'll sind word that she'll never place her foot in this house only over
me dead body. Neither me daughter nor meself will contaminate the place
with such trash."

"Then, Johanna, will you go with me to face the girl and sift her story?"

"Me, to go to the beck of her! I've sifted her story. Shame on ye, Daniel
Delacy, ye have less gumption than an eft, and ye knowing me, to suggest
such an indignity."

"Well, Robert, you can ride to the Township with me to-morrow."

"I won't." Robert swaggered rebelliously.

"Arrah! 'Tis as I thought. You're too guilty to face the girl. There's no
man, woman or child on this earth that I am not game to face about
anything."

"I'm not guilty at all. She's a liar and a ----. I'll go to Queensland
before I'll say a word to her."

"You are mortal uneasy about her accusations if it will take Queensland
to pull you up--running from a girl no more than five feet high. I've
seen you smirking after her often enough. While you are on Bewuck, you'll
observe what I say. I'm ashamed that wan of me breed hasn't the pluck to
face a bull's nest and explode it, if it's false. You should have heard
the bally-ragging I faced from the Raffertys, male and female."

Put this way, Robert said he would go. Danny barred the gig as flash, and
they set off on horseback, Robert considerably subdued.


The encounter was in Hennessy's private den. Molly was dressed with
girlish simplicity and a manner to match. She hardly raised her eves to
Danny and hovered touchingly on the verge of tears. She was so pretty and
healthy that she charmed Danny, who had always liked her cheerful
riendliness. Whatever she was, he thought her worth a whole boiling of
Fullwoods.

Robert, braced for belligerence, was nonplussed by Molly's chaste, shy
mien. Could such hypocrisy be! He had thought his mother rather soft as
to his own virtues, but he marvelled at her acumen regarding the
perfidious Molly.

"Now, Molly, bear up," said Hennessy. "Though ye've done foolishly, ye
and Robert were both vaynial young folks. Things can be minded, as Mr
Delacy has shown."

Danny removed his pipe to address seductive girlishness. Robert felt as
many another man--and woman--has felt on seeing a jury of males bowled
over by the attractively presented sexiness of some designing hussy.

"Now, Molly McCathie, you've brought wan of the most serious accusations
in life against me son, and what have you to say for yourself?"

Molly fluttered and choked and took refuge in a handkerchief. "I didn't
want to, but Robert kept on and on, and I was frightened, but he swore by
everything holy to marry me."

"What a boomer!" burst from Robert. "I could never make you have me
because you were so mashed on Athol Macallister. He was always in your
bedroom as if he was married to you."

"Phwat do ye know of anny young gurrl's bedroom? Ye are admitting that ye
bothered her with advances?" bawled Hennessy.

Robert saw his mistake. Hennessy continued. "Ye cannot denoi that Mrs
Rooney and meself found ye in me niece's room on the noight of the
dance?"

"I don't remember anything about it. I took a nobbler of your poisoned
grog, and Gerry Butler and Athol Macallister and Tom Angus played a
practical joke by landing me there. I never harmed Molly, I'm sure of
that."

"Sure there's no harrum at all, if ye'll shoulder ye'r raysponsibilities
loike a gintleman. Molly's heart is scalded for ye, and if ye'r feyther
will put up a little caboose for ye, Oi'll set ye up rint free, with as
handsome a prospect as tinny one."

"It's not my responsibility. I was too dead drunk."

"It wasn't that time but all the others," whimpered Molly, "and every one
is talking about you and me, and I'm ruined. I wish was dead."

"As to being ruined," said Danny judicially, "scandalmongering japers are
like the magpies chattering on the fence posts; but are you really ruined
to the extent of prospects of motherhood?"

Molly bent her head and' fostered wild sobs, satisfactory to Hennessy,
touching to Danny, but dismaying to Robert.

"I'll ave to kill myself," she wailed, with shattering sobs.

"I'm not the only one."

"Ye're the only wan Molly has ever encouraged," said the good-tempered
tones of Hennessy. "Oi was not anxious for ye, as Molly has bet ther
chances, but there is no evidence from here to Goulburn of Molly being
out with anny one but ye. Whoi, didn't ye come straight here and get her
to christen ye'r gig? The divvil mind ye, if Oi had known that ye were
not honourably intintioned to me motherless orphan! I tawt, being the son
of a gindeman, the sowl of honour himself, that Oi was safe wid ye. There
were plinty others--Macallister for wan, but the crows could see that he
is dangerous, and niver did me gurrl go out of soight wid him."

Asseverations and denials were powerless in face of such mendacity. When
Robert got out of that room he would steer for the Queensland border
without waiting for fine weather. At the end of a hacking session,
Hennessy observed that his poor child was fainting, and, dramatically
picking her up, carried her from the room. He threw her on her bed none
too tenderly, "Don't ye inove out till I give ye lave. Begor, 'tis safest
to put the key in me pocket."

He returned to Delacy. Robert was contemptuously silent, his scorn
suiting his eagle features.

"You can go to bed, Robert. I want a word with Hennessy."

Robert removed himself with open contempt, but it made no dint in
Hennessy's purpose. Robert was damned if ever he'd allow the old man to
tell him to go to bed again. He'd sooner tell him to go to hell than
obey. If those two old fools thought they were going to settle his
affairs, they'd find out their mistake, but uneasiness arose through his
debts to Hennessy. As many a one with a "fine head for business", finding
money easy, Robert had squandered it. Was Hennessy reserving mention of
the debts for a knock-out blow?

He picked his overcoat and hat from the rack, went to the stable for his
horse, and galloped into the sharp night, reaching home at two o'clock.
His mother called out to him and he told her of Molly's hypocrisy and the
attitude of his father and Hennessy. His mother's support was comforting.
"No matter what they do, I'll never marry her," he maintained.

"'Twill never come to that. If ye'r lather is such a newt to be put upon
to that extint, we'll have a plan as simple as shelling peas that will
leave them looking like a pair of plucked geese in a thunderstorm."

Under seal of secrecy he confessed to debts. His mother took this the
right way too. "Me poor foolish boy. He has prepared a trap for ye, the
unholy scoundrel. We can make it up out of the egg money."

Robert confessed to about half. Even that staggered his mother, but did
not daunt her.


"Are you convinced that Molly is to become a mother?" Danny inquired of
Hennessy.

"We can be sure wid a doctor," said Hennessy smoothly. "Shure, 'twould be
a raylief to know otherwise. Oi'm no advocate of forced marriages."

"I propose Dr Britton in Goulburn. A certificate from him would convince
me."

"Oi'll take Molly to-morrow and Dr Britton can sind worrud in his own
hand."

Molly washed her puffed face and reviewed her position. She was incensed
by Athol Macallister's indifference to her last plea, his cruelty when
her hunger for him was unendurable. She was forced to do something to
offset it, and Robert was an instrument. His superior attitude filled her
with a desire for revenge, and the hardihood to go through with her
uncle's plan. He was only a puppy, a lout, whining after her like a
little boy, crying even for kisses, and now to blacken her and throw the
blame on others!

She could have picked on Athol, but he would have laughed at any threat
of being sued for maintenance. He had never babbled of marriage as Robert
had. Her attempt to force Robert into marriage had in it more of revenge
on Athol than desire to save her name. Such infatuation and dehght as
hers in Athol could not be quite unreturned. She sought to arouse his
jealousy.

Danny was not surprised to find that Robert bad gone. It left him free to
return by Butler's and confront Gerald. His honesty and candour unsuited
him for such investigation. Gerry had enjoyed Molly's generosity. He had
been a floater for years because he could make no headway with Della who
nevertheless did not accept any one else and thus end his uncertainty.
Gerry's only concern was to clear himself, though it might put Molly in
the family into which his brother was about to marry and where he too had
not given up hope. He was cautious, but admitted that Robert had been
fond of Molly.

Danny reached Bewuck before Johanna had retired. Robert kept out of the
way. Johanna extraeted what had passed in Hennessy's room, and put her
own construction on it.

"Robert must shoulder his responsibilities. It doesn't matter to me if
the girl is Molly McCathie or the Governor's daughter." Argument was
useless when he closed his mouth that way. Johanna had not prevailed over
him religiously when he was young and amorous. She compressed her lips
upon her own purpose. Her beautiful son was not to be sacrificed to a
faggot, let Dr Britton's verdict be what it might.

Robert found the atmosphere unbearable. It was against the training of
horses. Danny had Hannon in tow and Robert could not give orders in view
of his own doubtful status. He was reheved when his mother asked for help
in her garden. Matters were not advanced for him by the arrival of a big
working bullock who attempted to get into the cow-paddock where he had
been born. "Sure, that's old Daisy's calf," observed Danny. "I thought
Robert gave him to the blacks with the hipped cow for a feast a year
ago." Hannon was silent. He never made trouble with his tongue.

Danny pursued the subject at dinner. "'Tis plain he's a worker; someone
must have got him from the blacks."

It was the beast that Robert had sold to pay for the gig. Robert longed
for his father to go away that day so he could manage the cursed affair,
but Danny turned the bullock into the cow-paddock and pottered about the
premises all the afternoon.

At dusk the owner appeared, a teamster named Bell. He was carrying stores
from the Township to The Plains and the bullock had bolted for home. "And
how did you come by him, I'd be interested to know?" inquired Danny.

"Bought Inns front the young cove here. I got a receipt."

"Sure, that was the lot me son told me about when I was in the mountains.
You'll stay the night?"

The man said he must push on, but he first had a good meal in the
kitchen.

Danny went into Robert. "Did you sell the yellow bullock to Bell
separate?"

Robert was caught.

"This will need explanation," said Danny, returning to talk with Bell,
who later departed with his beast. The disappointed creature had to be
heeled all the way up the cutting by a dog and striped by a whip till he
bled. Danny called his son out behind the stables in the frosty night and
gave him such a dressing-down that Robert trembled. Danny was at a loss
to account for such a lack of principle in a son of his loins. "And what
did you do with the money?"

"Bought the gig to drive Ma about," said Robert sullenly.

"I bought a carriage more comfortable to your mother."

"It's as big as a circus."

"I thought at the time you were wanting in judgment to give a young
bullock to the blacks, but I would rather that you lacked judgment than
principle," said Danny, showing his own lack of business values.

Robert could have been cutting, as he grew to be with years, but was
subdued by the fear of his greater debt to Hennessy coming to light.

"It looks as if you lacked principle right through. Molly McCathie is too
good for you." Danny stumped hack to his fire. Christianly lenient to
others, he set an inexorably high standard for himself and his own.

Robert's vanity, of which he had an inordinate share, was painfully
wounded, a stinging experience, following upon the other. In his
passionate humiliation he actually contemplated flight to Queensland, and
that was desperation. He was a homer, not a roamer by nature.

That evening Danny retired early, and to his bed proper, the big double
bed of marital years. "Bring me nightshirt," he requested Norah. "I'm
free from me cold now." Robert's debacle was not all distress to his
father. Obliquely it gave him conjugal courage.

Johanna remained up unusually late, but she found Danny awake waiting for
her, a candle set on his chest to read the paper. "Yell set the place
a-fire wan of these nights," she said, but omitted to complain of the
ripe odour of the pipe.

"I came to bed early to have a private talk with you."

"And I stayed up late to balk ye," thought Johanna, taking as long as the
frosty air permitted to prepare herself for bed.

A sore and sorry Robert lay awake wondering what his father was saying as
the murmur of voices continued for some time.

"If the blacks demanded two and he satisfied them with wan, sure, he was
entoitled to the money," was Johanna's argument. "He wasn't entitled to
tell a lie and deceive me."

"A little whoite loi!".

"A lie is a lie."

"And a fool is a fool," thought Johanna. "Sure, ye can't expect a foine
young man of Robert's address and education, and a head for business on
him, to manage and improve everything and be contint with the position of
an assigned man."

Danny thought with satisfaction that Robert would be relieved of
management.

"Ye cannot educate a foine boy to be a gentleman and expect him to drag
around like a peat cutter," persisted Johanna.

"An honest man is more to me than the shiniest gentleman. Be the poipers,
no man can be a gentleman at all unless he is honest first."

Johanna might have approved of the misappropriation of the bullock,
thought Danny. He was shocked by her attitude, and, in the way of
parents, inclined to attribute the bad streak in Robert to her side. He
laid her unreasoning partisanship to the maniacal qualities of mother
love, the protection of the offspring by the female, to be seen even in
the magpie.

"If his own father can't protect him whin he makes a little youthful
slip, it's a poor chance for me boy in a world full of lags and harpies."
Johanna sounded like tears.

"Och, woman, there's no rayson at you," said Danny, turning over, and
half wishing that he had kept to the end room. "By damnl he's just like a
magpie with a nest," he thought as he drifted to sleep, comforted that it
was a natural rather than an evil phenomenon.

A cold sweat would break over Robert when he thought of Dr Britton's
report being affirmative. The days hung like a blight. He was thankful to
retreat to the barn and husk maize, a task formerly beneath him.



CHAPTER XX


William's arrival was a welcome break in the strain.

As soon as Doogoolook had reached Burrabinga with Danny's letter, Harry
investigated as far as Learmont's while William went to Wong Foo and to
James Fullwood's hut. Bella had been at the hut, as a garment testified.
Wong had further information about Delacy cattle going to market with the
Fullwoods, and this time there was nothing to cloud the issue.

"That streel must have gone off with James Fullwood," said Harry to
William in solemn consultation.

"She even made up to me, but I threatened to throw a dish of water on
her," responded the unconscious Joseph.

"And we'll get the blame of it and all the disgrace. Will she have a
baby?" Harry sank to a hollow whisper.

Billy Aldon, the stockman baching with O'Neill, came for rations, and as
the matter was no longer secret, the Delacys talked with him. He was
enamoured of Bella. It was for safety that Danny had latterly banished
him to Dead Horse Plain. Jealousy loosened his tongue. He was ready any
time that a witness was needed as to who lifted so many Delacy cattle
during the past year. The boys left that in abeyance until they could
reinstate their respectability regarding the abduction or absconding of
Bella. Billy was eager to follow Fullwood to Hell or Hay in order "to
belt the stuffin' outer the ---- ole morepork".

"There's not much stuffing in old skinny Jimmy, but we'll let Billy rip,"
chuckled William.

Fullwood must have left Bella somewhere, if he had gone on to Melbourne
with cattle, as reported. The three young men set out to find her,
leaving Ned Callahan to patrol Burrabinga, a great deal of which was then
under snow. From the ranges across the river for twenty miles to Bullock
Gap and beyond was girth deep in dry snow as if coarse salt had been
scattered, and every denizen of the bush had left his track, whether
Menura or wombat, dingo or bandicoot.

William rode to Gool Gool, Harry to Queanbeyan, and Billy Aldon to
Gundagai on the Great Southern Road. He had no difficulty in tracking
Bella. Women riding that way were an event in winter. He followed to
Cootamundra, where Bella was established at the best hotel, and calling
herself Mrs Wood. When Aldon said he had a letter for her she ordered him
to be sent in. She was in gay mood, which incensed her discarded lover.

"Is this what you've come tot Too flash for an honest man's offer to make
a decent wife of you, but that ---- of a rotten cattle-duffing swell can have
his own way."

Bella stuck her tongue out and giggled until she was breathless.

"You may be all right for a bit in yer fine feathers, but wait till
people know what you are--_Mrs Wood!_ Think yer very smart, ain't you.
At any rate I'll foller ole Jimmy and belt the stuffm' outer his
ole hide."

"Cripes, that would be funny! He could have you took up by the police."

"He can be took up for abduction if you ain't of age."

"Took up for abducting his own missus! You are a hard ease!"

"So that's what he promised, and you are green enough to swaller it."

"Seein's believin'. I'll show me marriage lines, and me ring." She
brought her left hand into view and took from the bosom of her dress a
document which elated her every time she beheld it. Billy could not read,
but was duly impressed.

"Crikey, Beller, is this true, or only gammon?"

Bella swore glibly that she was Mrs James Fullwood, and calling herself
Wood modestly until James could take her to his family. "Golly, I'm
splittin' me sides to think how that Annie and Grace will look w'en they
have to call me Aunty."

The disappointed lover was cheered. Bella was a merry wight. "They
mightn't have nothink to do with yer."

Bella tossed her head. "Just let them try any larks!"

"Oh, well," said Billy with resignation, "Seein' you have done so well by
yourself, I wish yous luck. I reckon I had better not welt the stuffin'
outer ole Jimmy."

They waxed familiar and Bella commissioned Billy to take the news to
"pore ole Mar". "This is sure to git out wrong end fust as soon as she
misses me, an' the ole cove will be runnin' round roarin' as if he could
do somethink. Tell them to keep it quiet till James comes home, as he
wants to take me to his family hisself."

"Cripes, I'd like to take the news to Heulong meself," grinned Billy. It
was impossible to be depressed with Bella.

Billy was pleased to be messenger. One was necessary seeing that none of
the parties could write a letter. "You really are married by a priest or
parson, not just hocussing me?"

"I was married by the ole parson here in town. Go an' arsk him. Tell him
ye'r me brother."

Billy did this and was assured that the marriage had been duly
solemnized. The clergyman congratulated the young man that his sister had
done so well for herself.

Billy returned to Burrabinga with his blithe news. William put Harry and
Callahan to winter tasks and rode with Billy on his errand. William went
on to set his father's mind at rest. His report was a triumph for Danny,
but a blow to Johanna to have that streel in a family she so much admired
and into which her heir apparent was to wed.

"Have I been rearing a shepherd's slut to enter the quality," she
remarked.


Dr Britton's report confirmed Molly's statement. Hennessy had ensured
that. He took Peggy Bell--daughter of the teamster who owned the yellow
bullock--with him for the purpose. She had been employed in the hotel,
had come to grief, and had just been found out by Mrs Rooney, the
housekeeper. Her swain, a young bullocky, was eager to make an honest man
of himself. Hennessy offered to take her to Goulburn with him and Molly,
to meet and marry her man, on his way with loading, and thus save her
from reproach. It was she whom Dr Britton certified as Molly McCathie.
She was so terrified that she merely wept and submitted to examination as
part of her fall. Mr Hennessy was so good to her. He gave her ten pounds
as a wedding present and had her cared for at the convent until her man
came through.

Dr Britton's report, made in good faith, filled Robert with fresh dismay.

"He'll marry the girl," said Danny, setting his jaw. He went riding about
the place, shifting stock and inspecting fences, followed by what dogs he
could command.

Norah said coldly, "We'll be dragged down to that level."

Robert sought his mother, startled by the prospect of exile to Queensland
with not so much as a horse except by permission of his father. To be
cooped at Bewuck as Molly's husband was hardly less terrifying, and he
could not remain on his old terms and refuse to marry her.

"There's wan very simple way to ind the trouble and be safe," said
Johanna.

"Too good to be true, but tell me."

"Silly choild! Off this night and ask Grace to elope with ye. Ye could
take her in the gig."

The carriage had been borrowed by Hennessy, without asking, to take the
erring females to Goulburn.

"That!" said Robert without enthusiasm. "That is not possible."

"She would run this very night if ye asked her. Whin I was years younger
than she is, didn't I run to the ind of the globe with ye'r father!"
Johanna's gurgle of laughter meant that if Danny could succeed, Robert
could not fail. "If ye were safely married to Grace, it's certain ye
could not be married to that other drab, not by all the bishops, nor the
blessed Pope himself, for even ye'r father does not hold with polygamy or
anny loose ideas, I will say that for him. Go you this afternoon, ye are
sure of a welcome."

Robert was too sure. He loathed Grace's clammy kisses. If he could go
where he'd never be seen again, he was bothered if he wouldn't prefer
Molly.

"Saddle-up and off ye go, boy."

"The river is high."

"Och, me son is not going to balk, whin his poor old father with wan leg
goes back and forth. Besides, me rheumatism is troubling me. I need some
of Mrs Fullwood's liniment. I've forgotten the recipe. Go, bring me some,
like a good son."

The errand would bring escape from his father. When Danny was out of
sight during the afternoon, Robert caught the tall grey and followed the
routine, but when safely across galloped on without changing, regardless
of chill. Danny inquired where he was, uneasy lest he might have flown to
Queensland.

"I'm kept awake at night with the rheumatism and I sent him for some
liniment."

"Arrah! Johanna, there's no use in throwing him with Grace. I won't
countenance sons of mine planting nameless children about the
Colony--black, whoite or green. He marries the girl, or he leaves the
place for ever."

"No other man would take such a hard stand against his own flesh and
blood."

"'Tis for, not against me own flesh...I want no bastard grandchildren."

"What ye'r doing is groping for the bastards of others."


Robert had a month's grace to marry Molly or go from the Bewuck roof. He
hoped against hope for reprieve. Molly McCathie remained with the
Sisters. They had been informed of the state of affairs and instructed to
guard Molly and allow none but young Delacy to see her. She was demure
and tractable and the good souls were eager to see her made respectable.

Hennessy knew of Delacy's edict.

The river grey had' a desperately hard life that winter, turned out
drenched night after night to freeze in the frost. His ribs could be
counted in his pinched hide, though it was not a droughty season.

Grace had a happy fortnight following Dr Britton's report.

Robert seemed to be in love with her at last, yet there was a canker of
uncertainty. He put a hypothetical proposition rather than a direct
proposal of marriage.

"My mother and father eloped, what would you think of eloping?"

"When a young lady really loves she thinks only of her intended's
happiness."

"What would you do if someone arrived to take you at your word?"

"If it was the onliest one..."

"It would be better in the summer time."

"All times of the year are the same to real love."

Still he hung off, clinging to freedom, turning over plans to save
himself from exile. He sent a statement to Tom Angus suggesting that he
should send down harness horses in which they would be partners. Robert
would train the animals somewhere near Sydney where buyers could come for
trial. If this was too ambitious Robert was sure that Tom would lend him
a couple of horses to go to Queensland. There was no need to submit to
either Grace or Molly.

He waited feverishly for Toin's response, embracing every opportunity of
getting the post. When a letter came Robert went down to the bunyip hole
to read it. His letter to Tom fell out of the wrapping, accompanied by
one from Ned, who wrote that Tom had departed for Calcutta in charge of a
shipment of horses. Doings had been slack at Birrabee and Tom was glad of
the adventure.

Danny and William were astonished by Tom's "clearing out as if he had a
firestick behind him" without saying good-bye or asking Burrabinga if
they had any horses to ship.

Robert later had a letter from Tom in Sydney explaining that he had had
to rush to catch the chance. The real reason for his sudden departure was
rumours of the Molly embroglio. He was, however, safe, because Hennessy
would suppress his name for Molly's sake. This was Robert's first example
of how boon companions consider their own safety in a jam. It was bitter
in his soul and left him without a prop.

"All the Bedouins must go back to Birrabee," announced Danny to William,
pleased with this further opportunity to re-establish his mastership of
Bewuck.

Johanna tried to enlist William in marrying Robert and Grace, but William
was as firmly against the Fullwoods as Danny, and for the same reason,
plus being of the age to feel Grace's lack of charm.

William had Robert's story first from Danny, and William's principle in
such issues was as straight as his father's. He thought it a low business
and shared Norah's point of view that Robert was dragging the family
down. Remembering Bella's advances and knowing Molly, he was fair enough
to say, "She must have snared Robert."

"Snared be damned! There are always snares. Principle will keep a man out
of snares."

Wilham was young. How could his father, old and one-legged, and an
"oddity" understand the lures cast for such dash as Robert's. William
then had his mother's presentation. He atttributed her attitude to
motherly devotion and to the ease with which a weak female's vision could
be clouded. Then the brothers got away behind the stables and Robert gave
his version. William accepted this with reserve.

Robert could not raise much swagger for all his obscenity and his
allegations that the other lads were equally guilty. He could not
minimize the plight he was in, nor feel anything but humiliation under
William's searching questions. The hearty guffaws from one side of
William did not hide his disapproval on the other. It was William's
opportunity to swagger a little in relating how Bella had tried similar
tactics with him, and how he had threatened her with a dish of water.
Robert felt William's respectability sitting in judgment. William
determined that Della should be informed of Gerry's participation, but a
letter from Norah had already done its work.


The Delacys did not announce Bella's romance, but such news speedily
leaked out: only from the Fullwood women at Heulong was it kept, as at
that date the river separated them from the Township and other centres of
gossip. The Rafferty joy was great--a Cophetua fairy story. "And, by
tripes, on one side, if not both, she's a bigger swell than the
Fullwoods," grinned her mother.

Charles Fullwood returned from the droving expedition and slipped quietly
home on the left bank of the river. His wife reported Robert's frequent
visits.

"Encourage him all you can," said Charles with an urgency that surprised
her. "It won't be easy to get rid of Grace."

"Why? I like Mrs Delacy, but she is _dreadfully_ Irish."

"It is a matter of business." Mrs Fullwood was never enlightened about
business. "Encourage Robert. Get them married."

"He has no prospects."

"Let them set up here to begin. He'll soon make his way."

"There are stories about his familiarity with Molly McCathie."

"Young men will have their fun. Molly might have been trying to trap him.
Grace had better nobble him; her chances won't last." Charles postponed
the news of 'Bella as a sister-in-law. Robert had never mentioned it.

Mrs Fullwood sighed. However, as a meek wife, she spoke tactfully to
Grace. On Robert's next visit he was flattered by Fullwood's cordiality
and the way he was consulted about horses.

"Papa would like you as a young partner," Grace beamed at him, her heant
in her eyes, such as they were. The quality of her eyes made that of her
heart negligible to young men. Surely Robert would hang off no longer.

The Fullwood attitude was balm to his deflated self-esteem, but
still--Grace! No. Exile would not be so unendurable as Grace's sickly
sentimental gush and inept embrace. He dwelt on Molly's delights--Molly
before whom he was hauled as an enemy. If Molly loved him best of
all--that was a softening thought. And the girl was in a dreadful fix. It
was, he supposed, a serious matter for a girl--but then all those other
fellows. Life could be complex.

He awoke each morning with a shudder to realize that another day was gone
from those wherein to decide between Grace, Queensland and Molly. The
most harrowing prospect was in being sued for maintenance by Molly so
that all his cronies would whoop from Riverina to Goulburn, and his fall
be known even in Sydney. Grace seemed the better way out. He would be
reinstated all round. He could make his way with horses. The Fullwoods
were so welcoming that it was like coming from frost to sunshine to
escape from his father to Heulong. It weakened his dislike for marriage
with Grace. He rode down the river nearly every evening and crossed in a
boat from Quebarra. His father did not ask where he went, but waited for
the month to run.

Johanna swung between fear of Robert being drowned of cramp in the river,
and the hope of hearing that he and Grace had eloped. Danny kept watch so
that Robert could not abstract the gig. Hennessy retained the carriage.
He sent Robert a private letter hinting that his debts could be cleared
up as a wedding gift; but those other men turned Robert against Molly. He
made up his mind to marry Grace.

He laid hesitation to his father's disapproval. When Charles Fullwood
heard of this he knew the reason. "Let them run away," he said. "Robert
has a taking way with the opposite sex and old Danny is looking for money
with him. Grace will be lucky to hook him."

Hennessy wrote that he would bring his niece and a priest as soon as the
month was up.

"He'll need an armed guard to take me," said Robert defiantly to his
mother. "You warn me of his approach and be off to Grace, but I don't
want to throw in my hand until the last round."

"That way you might lose Grace."

This prospect was not without comfort to Robert.

Molly was equally distraught. She passed her days in feverish longing for
Athol Macallister, smuggling letters to him and begging him to rescue her
from Robert. No answer came, so one day as the month was ending, such are
the fluctuations of _amour_, that she wrote one more letter in a style
absorbed from the sentimental romances she favoured:

I don't want you to come now. I find that the diktates of my heart are no
longer for you. Your immage is being thrust out by that of a manlyer
figure. A week ago I loved you to _distrackion_, but you _trampled_ on my
love and did not care that you had left me in trouble. I find that I have
been spared the punishment of my reckless love. You have no power over me
now. I could pass you by _without interest_. My pulses would not flutter at
beholding you. I am now happy in my love for Robert and will make him a
good wife. He has been nobel and generous. He is a better man than you in
every way. He is taller and _handsomer_, and a _better whip_. I don't care
if I never see you again but I wish you well. I am longing for my wedding
day--only six days more now. Robert and I will drive to Sydney.




CHAPTER XXI


The day came. Robert, worn by the strain of the past month, worked with
his mother in her garden, and she kept watch. Danny stumped about,
elaborately casual, ordering and consulting with Hannon and William.

The short, cold afternoon waned without the dogs announcing any thing or
person coming down the cutting. The sun, attended by a few clouds, sank
in winter brilliance as though a universe of gold had exploded beyond the
rim and scattered islands and mountains in seas of molten glory around
the globe. Robert was unresponsive to its grand beauty. His mother urged
him away to Grace.

"I'll wait till daylight--safer for the river," he said, and went to bed
early.

Danny sat up late. Johanna sat with him. "No sign of Hennessy," she said
triumphantly, when they retired. The dogs curled against the cold, had
not announced so much as a possum.

"He has been delayed," said Danny.

The household was tense for an arrival during the following day, but it
too ran away undisturbed, its full sunlit silence palpitating on the
clearings like a spirit that had escaped from the sombre brooding scrub.
Robert was acutely nervous. All felt the drama. Danny was tormented by
curiosity and the desire to go to the Township to broach the situation,
but dignity forde.

On the third day the ballyhoo of the dogs portended something special,
and Mrs Delacy's carriage and Hennessy's pair were outlined on the
skyline preparatory to descent.

"Away to Grace," counselled Johanna, but Robert felt suddenly that he
preferred Molly as a woman per se. If old Hennessy would set him up near
Sydney, where he would escape local pother, and if it were not for doubts
of the paternity of that coming child, he would be willing. Molly, after
all, was a first love, and deliciously in her teens, while Grace was
leanly his senior by two years.

"Are you staying to meet the bride, or will you swim the Yackandandah to
Grace?" William asked him.

"If he has dared to bring that slut, she shall not enter this house,"
said Johanna, embattled.

Danny went out. William stood in the background. Norah and Maeve peeped
unseen. Robert hid.

"Good day, sir," said Hennessy's groom, reining-in near the stables.

Danny gave good day and went forward.

"Where shall I leave the vehicle?" inquired the man. The horses lowered
their heads to relieve their shoulders from the collars, and mouthed the
bit's. The man descended. No one came from the body of the carriage. "Mr
Hennessy sent the carriage back with his compliments."

"Have you a letter?"

"No, sir. He only told me to return the carriage."

Danny opened the door. There was nothing inside but a saddle and bridle
for the man's return journey. Danny was mystified, but hospitality was
imperative. "Turn the horses out and stay the night."

William passed the information to his mother. Robert overheard and his
spirits leapt up like a flame at the unexpected reprieve from both Molly
and Grace.

Danny would not make direct inquiries from Hennessy's employee. He talked
to him in the kitchen and supplied him with grog, but could learn nothing
clarifying. Hennessy's move was cryptic. Danny would stay on his own
preserves and await another. His and Robert's tactics had become one.


Several days earlier Hennessy had pounded off to Goulburn because the
Sisters had written that all was now well with his niece. The young
gentleman, unable to wait any longer, had whisked her away, they said,
though Hennessy knew through his informants that Robert was still at
Bewuck.

There was a flutter among the Sisters when Hennessy arrived. They showed
Molly's letter thanking them and stating that she was off to be married
to the man she loved. They were satisfied because the young man had come
in a dogcart with horses of queer colour with white manes and tails. When
he had Molly safely in his trap he came and left the letter, because
Molly, bless her kind heart, in spite of her venial sins, did not want
them to be worried.

"What loike was the young man?" demanded Hennessy, a grim certainty
settling on him. He knew those liver-coloured horses. "He was smallish
and thin with hair as red as the fox." Hennessy said no more. He paid
his debts and withdrew to prepare for a shotgun marriage, not the first
nor the last of its kind among the nobility, and their parody the
squattocracy. He rushed to the train to Sydney, sending back
instructions about the Delacy carriage. He was in a humiliating position
with Delacy, whom he respected. Hennessy was somewhat honest, though
sensitiveness had been killed by the lash. Society must pay for that.
Arrivism was his creed.

The momentary sincerity of Molly's indifference, reflected in her letter,
had worked upon Athol's vanity, and he bowled along to reassert his sway.
Molly's wounds still smarted and she was clever enough to work upon him
about Robert's jealousy until he believed her. "Mr Delacy is as mad for
me to marry Robert as Robert is himself because Uncle Kevin has promised
to set us up and make me his heiress. I'd be afraid to go with you.
Robert is a dead shot." Athol knew the truth of the last.

"Uncle would shoot you like a wallaby too, or get the blacks down there
to put a spear into both of us, and end the disgrace." The blacks around
Macallister's holdings had niot been conciliated. Athol, remembering
Robert's infatuation for Molly, was brought to promise marriage,
whereupon Molly consented to go with him to Sydney. He put her up at
Petty's and was surprised to find that no marriage, no favours. Molly had
become silent and pale, and even more seductive to the hardy male animal.
The hotel was above reproach, so Athol put up around the corner and
enjoyed Molly in the correctest fashion.

The liver-coloured Bedouins were as easily traced as a comet, and
Hennessy caught up with them before Molly's resistance had buckled,
fortunately for her career. Athol was indignant that Hennessy should
mention firearms, such was his temperature at the moment.

So it was a romantic marriage and Hennessy welcomed Molly and Athol
effusively until old Bandy should come to reason. Marriage was final and
Athol was a bigger prize financially than the Delacys and Fullwoods
combined. Socially, therefore, he could lord it where lie willed, and
Hennessy was strengthened in Isis ambitions for Euphemia Fitzhugh.

"Shure, were ye just playing ye'r cards to bring him up to scratch?"
chuckled Hennessy. "Ye're the deep wan, Molly asthore."

"For two pins I'd have had neither of them," said Molly, recovering her
spirit with safety.

Her career as Mrs Macallister did not become part of Y Delac's epic,
though she made bins look foolish before Robert, now victorious. Johanna
did not let Danny off lightly.

"The poor lamb," she crooned. "Wouldn't anny parent with a speck of
natural instinct in the heart of him know that the buy had been led to
take a drop of grog--and him not being set a good example by his own
father--and it to go to his head, and the rest to be put upon him as a
felonious practical joke."

"He did tamper with the girl, whatever."

"A drab, and she and her scoundrelly so-called uncle with two min
bailed-up till she saw which was the weakest under blackmailing, no
less."

Robert's right to swagger offensively was tamed by uneasiness lest the
debt to Hennessy should come to light; nor was the thought of Grace
reassuring. He shuddered to think that he might now have been tied to
Grace's fishy kisses for life! Never again would he let himself be scared
into anything by a woman. Still, he wished he could disappear until the
matter cooled with Grace.

Fullwood had a picturesque version of the affair. He recognized that
Robert had contemplated safety through Grace, and, now that danger had
passed, would discard het like an icicle.

Instead of stiffening her pride, Grace nearly wept Iser eyes assay, and
courted a decline by exaggerating a common cold.

Fullwood came around by the Township and made a formal call upon Delacy.
He opened mildly while smoking a pipe in tile sun after dinner. He
sketched a pathetic picture of his daughter and stressed Robert's
responsibility. Danny allowed him to talk himself out and then repeat
while he drew deep gurgles from his hippo of a pipe. 'Then he knocked out
the ashes on his wooden leg. "Sure, Fullwood, I have the advantage of you
in this leg to empty me pipe. There's philosophy in that now, to make
some use out of everything when it's turned against you. 'Tis aisier in
theory than in practice, but if it would be followed 'mould make a man
invincible."

Fullwood regarded this as an evasion and waited until Delacy loaded up
again. It was like asking a man to go into battle unarmed to deprive
Delacy of his pipe. "Whin I swam the Yackandandah in 'fifty-two, sure, I
broke me wooden leg, but me pipe remained in place."

"I wonder that it is still detachable."

"'Tis a lamentable weakness, whin a man ponders on it." Fullwood was far
from wishing to ponder on it. He noticed Maeve taking a couple of chums
of swill to the pigs, and suggested inspection to get away from household
ears.

"Sure," said Delacy when they were at the sty. "I've heard that Robert
has paid a few visits to Heulong. 'Tis lamentable when young women take
these things over seriously."

"A few visits!" rasped Fullwood. "He has been at my housse constantly,
and made himself inseparable from my daughter. I  not have permitted it
if I had been at home, but my wife is easily imposed upon."

"'Tis true you've been away this past year on a great deal of business,"
dryly remarked Delacy. This time he was to stand by his own, because of
principle fundamentally, and inclination humanly. Grace was no motherless
maiden, nor dimpled darling.

"Yes, I was unavoidably absent, and your son took advantage of that,"
said Fullwood tartly.

"I'nt sorry, Fullwood, if what you say is true, but there are anny number
of gossoons running about the district looking for wives, and your
daughter can have her pick."

"But I have to remember that I am a Fullwood of Fullwood Manor, County
Sussex, and my daughter cannot..."

"'Tis so. And I have to remember that I am an hottest manor try to
be--and like Denny Blake, I'm from County Clare. That's all these is at
it Fullwood, except that we'll have to carry our hides to the tansard
ounselves in the finish--and under our own brands, Fullwood--under our
own brands."

Fullwood cursed him for a rambling old Irish fool, and attempted to bring
hint to the point. "Well, Delacy, what are you going to do about it?"

"About bringing me hide to the tanyard eventually under me own brand?"

"Philosophy may be well enough for educated philosophers, but I am
speaking of my daughter."

"And she having no education in philosophy, you imply."

"You arc evading the point."

"That's no lie, neither. Sure, I'll return to it. _Auribus teneo _lupum_.
I advise your daughter to look for another beau who will be pond to marry
on a Fullwood front the dayvil knows where."

"Dammel Is sour son to go about the country breaking a refined young
female's heart and wrecking her health? Her very life may be at stake."

"Sure, hasn't she been able to find a second string for her bow? I wish
her every success in the world. I don't hold it against anny girl who her
father is, or in what County he was born. 'Tis a dispensation beyond her
entirely...That's a fine sow, Fullwood...She's likely to farrow a dozen
piglets. What mote could you expect of a lady?"

"Your flippancy shows a lack of sensibility. I'm willing to pass it over
as the Irish idea of a joke, but I shan't let the matter rest there."

"What do you expect of me, Fullwood. There can be nothing more likely of
disaster than a young man to marry where he has no love."

"Then he should not court in that direction."

"He should not. If me son has done that he shall be reprimanded, I
promise you."

With this, Fullwood was so discontented that he scent for his horse.
"You'll turn your horse out and stay the night? 'Tis a long stretch back
to the Township, and the days not much longer yet." Fullwood declined. He
did not return to the house to say good-bye to the ladies. He muttered
when in the saddle, "I hope Delacy that this matter will be settled its a
gentlemanly way."

"I hope so too, I'm sure, Fullwood, _ab imo pectore_, and definitely. I
have no policy of ungentlemanliness to anny mats of anny
nationality--English or Irish, black, whoite or greets. 'Tis that your
idea of a gentleman and mine might differ. No man without principle is a
gentleman to me no matter what County or palace he may come from. Good
day!"

The dogs rushed out and heeled the departing gentleman up the cutting,
Fullwood lashing furiously at them with his whip. "Sool him, boys! Sool
him!" Danny chuckled under his breath. Aloud Ise bayed above the dogs,
"Come behind! Come behind, you mong-rels! Lie down!"

"And whoi did Mr Fullwood go off without a good afternoon, and he a
gentleman?" inquired Johanna.

"His title to gentleman was not aquil to the sudden strain put on it.
Matters are a little awkward by reason of his accusations that Robert has
been philandering with Grace. He as much as threatened proceedings, if
Robert doesn't marry her."

"God help us! I hope ye told him that we will elcome Grace. The best
thing for Robert is to settle down with her. He has been put off romance
a little by that impudent drab's attack. A shock to a sensitive boy."

"Humph!" said Danny. "Get all foolishness out of your head about the
Fullwood piece and Robert. Though Robert seas reprehensible to court her,
I shall not expect bins to marry in this case where there is no
suggestion of a nameless offspring. I would not countenance wan of me
risen marrying whit a Fullwood if she was hung with the wealth of the
whole County of Sussex."

"No, ye'd lather force him to marry with a by-blow of a lag."

"You talk against the facts. You accuse me of not caring for family, and
I hope I never shall in the low snob sense, but I'm sound on breed, and
never will wan of mine marry with so low a breed as Fullwoods, I don't
care if they have an orchard of family trees all hung with titles instead
of fruit. The Fullwoods talk in a whine and look sly. I have plenty more
in hand, but let that content you. Auribus teneo lupum. There is no use
in bidding the dayvil good day unless he is about to enter."



CHAPTER XXII


Molly and Athol were at the hotel until old Macallister should show his
hand. Hennessy was working the connection for all he could socially.
Molly had her own suite in glory equal to that of Euphemia Fitzhugh, now
shorn of a carriage. Euphemia, hearing of the half-dozen stations and
endless flocks and herds of old Bandy--a widower--was looking forward to
meeting him. She was, therefore, less hoity-toity to Molly, and Molly
victorious, was not so touchy. Hennessy was beamingly hopeful. His
unmentionable days having shown him the fibre of those in the stirrups,'
he was determined to be among them, and believed in and depended upon
push, though one sound thins in him was his appreciation of character.
Delacy was a favourite with him. He was desirious of healing any
lacerations, so wrote to Robert begging the favour of a few private
words.


Hennessy was none of your ilhterate terriers. He had been a bright
scholar at one of the little Hedge Schools born of the Penal Laws, where
he had learned to read out of a Catholic prayer book lent to him by a
soft-eyed, bare-footed maid with a shawl over her curls, and a dream in
her eyes, which she had shared with young Kevin. She was to have been
his, but his ability to read and write had later made him prominent in
the Anti-Union agitation and resulted in his transportation. An untamable
dislike to conform had earned him those shameful wales on his back,
though he did not forget Brigid. When he had earned his ticket-f-leave,
he wrote home, but an unknown parish priest replied that the family in
question had perished during the famine. There had been another woman
then, generous in concupiscence to the handsome young lag, and she had
later dumped Molly on him. He had done his best for Molly, not so much
because of her mother's generosity as for the memory of the little
Brigid, who had died of hunger waiting for him, whose dream died with
her. In its place came a hardy desire for power and consequence. Euphemia
Fitzhugh was a possible stepping-stone in his ambition, which would not be
helped by enmity with Robert Delacy, whom Fullwood, brother-in-law of
Euphemia, was pursuing for his daughter.

Hennessy's letter was extremely tactful and Robert appeared without
delay, driving his gig again. His father was under-dog for the moment.

"Well, young Robert Delacy, it was about that money ye owe me, Oi don't
suppose ye can pay it all off in wan gulp?"

"Not just at the moment." Robert's business head came to his aid. "You
owe me more than I owe you for what you tried to put upon me and the old
man."

Hennessy loosed a genial guffaw. "Ye've a great head on ye! It was moi
intintion to tell ye not to throuble about the interest. I had no ill
feelings to ye at the toime, and hope ye howld none now."

"None at all, but business is business, Hennessy. I have a sound case for
an action, but the worry is not good for my mother. We'll call it square
if you like to give me a note of discharge. I don't want to hurt Molly.
The mud would dirty her.' It doesn't matter to a man," Robert concluded
with daring swagger.

"Ye flash pup, ye never came from the owld man's soide. It will soon take
double dark glasses to protect the ois whin behowlding ye," thought
Hennessy, but he liberated another spurious chortle and clapped Robert on
the shoulder. "Ye're a bright fellow, Robert Delacy. No wonder Molly
didn't catch ye, though she pulled the wool over her owld uncle's ois to
hilp her, she wanted ye that bad."

Robert's vanity began to recover from some of its wounds. He could say,
"Looks like it, when she leathers off with another."

"Be japers, ye hurrt her proide, and ye know how we'll clutch at the
second bit to save our proide."

This put Robert in an amenable mood. "If you give me a note of full
discharge, properly attested, we'll wipe the slate clean on both sides
and let bygones be bygones."

"Shure, we will. Come and have a dbrink on the house."

The snob in Robert prevailed, also recollections of the consequences of
Hennessy's grog. "Thanks, but your grog was the cause of my trouble." He
said it haughtily without a twinkle. Already he could be as
uncompromisingly aristocratic as his mother.

"It's the last Winne yell iver rayluse a dhrink wid me," thought
Hennessy, but he said, "Ye've a head on ye, Robert, to learn by
experience, and Oi applaud ye, but coine and call on Molly McCathie,
alias Mrs Athol Macallister."

Robert condescended to this. Molly was eager to second her uncle in her
social einstatement. Robert was a ladies' man. He could be cutting to
women, but not insensible to their allure, if it existed. Molly was
acting a shy ladylike part reminiscent of her convent training. Robert
must make the first move. Hennessy left them together. Molly languished
in the best style, fluttering a lace handkerchief above her flounces,
displaying an embroidered sandal on a footstool.

"I have called to congratulate you. I suppose I must call you Mrs
Macallister?"

"No, I am Molly to old friends--in private. In public maybe it would be
better to stick on the Mrs, seeing that I have shocked the fogies." The
old roguish Molly peeped out. Robert became himself.

"What the hell did you mean, getting the two old men after me that way,
and then running off with that Athol?'

"Why did you break my heart? I was desperate. You had ruined my
reputation, and poor dear Athol is so desperately in love with me, I was
sorry for him." Molly sighed.

Robert knew the rights of her pose about reputation, but it was so
gratifying to learn that he had broken her heart and that she had to turn
to Athol in despair, that he overlooked it.

"Well, Molly, I wish you well. I must depart. I am not good for ladies'
reputations." He turned at the door with bravado, "Are you going to call
it Robert?"

Molly tossed a cushion after him. He heard her gay laughter as he
descended. She came running down the passage and called over the
bannister, "Stay to-night and we can go over some names. Athol is in
Goulburn."

Robert, elated, said to Hennessy with a tone of authority, "You won't
forget that note of discharge."

"Shure!" grunted Hennessy. "And ye can sind in the gig."

"Tell you what," compromised Robert then, "we might both, a well as not,
let the tail go with the hide. Let me have what I pairl on the trap, and
it is yours; and I'll train a pair for you for goal' measure."

"Roight ye are, on wan condition."

"What is that?"

"That ye'r women folk don't look down on Molly."

"I'm afraid I do not control the ladies of my family."

"Ye can say a word. It won't do to hurt Molly's feelings." Dealing with
these jumped-up Colonials, one needed a sledge-hammer style and Hennessy's
determination was to jump-up himself without bashfulness.

"If ye'r women folk were kind-hearted enough to call on Molly--" he
continued without a qualm, "well, ye could kape the gig, and Oi'd give ye
what ye laid on it as well. It is betther to run ye'r mother about than
the owld circus van. Now, if ye'r mother was to call on Molly it would he
aquil to the Quane's condescinsion to clear up the little
misunderstanding on all soides, and choke the gossip out of the tongues
of the sweepings that abount in this district--a bargain on it--ye've a
head for business on ye."

"I'll see what can be done," said Robert, hesitantly.

"Be japers, it is done thin already, me bhoy, for no lady could resist
ye, not wan so condescinsious, and of the rare gentility of ye'r own
mother. Shure, here is the cash, and Oi'll have the note of discharge
ready whin ye'r mother comes to call on Molly, no less...Norah too, would
complete it."

Hennessy retained a trump, but Robert came to the Bewuck supper table on
the following night with more self-assurance than he had enjoyed for
months. He could hold up his head again, and a fine head it was. Tall,
haughty, slender, he was the hidalgo to perfection, and gave body to
Johanna's legend that far back on her mother's side was a grandee of
Spain; that one of the women of the family haying found on the beach,
unconscious, a man from the fleeing Armada had been so taken with his
beauty that slte had him carried home and hidden in a garret while others
were being murdered and rifled for loot; that she married him and that he
turned out to be the son of a nobleman.

"'Twas all written down in an old book that me grandmother had from her
great-grandmother, as sure as the Book of Ballymote," she would muse.
When Della and Norah would ask her to write home for a copy of the
entries, Johanna would change the subject. That she would never write
home was painful to her. "Maybe ye'll go home ye'rself wan day," she
would say, "and find out if anny of them escaped the famine."

The girls, as they grew, found slights put upon the Irish by those
prejudiced against the breed and its creed. They heard people mimicking
their parents' brogue, which is a sore shame to adolescents, and so they
were not ambitious to trace themselves to a dagosome sort of half-black
in addition to being Irish--and Johanna's story was but faintly
remembered.

Robert took his father aside during the evening and brought the
sovereigns from his pocket. "There's the money for the yellow steer. I
only sort of borrowed it."

"It's a good thing never to borrow in that way. As often as not there's
an accident and such borrowing is embezzlement in a court of law.
Whatever, you've had your lesson."

"I'll never be so green again," said Robert, but with a different
connotation from his fathers.

"And now, how did you come by the money:"

"I had it paid on the gig, but in consideration of the way Hennessy
treated me, I am to have the gig and the money, and let bygones be
bygones."

"'Tis quite decent of Hennessy."

"Decent of me to let the old bushranger off for bailing me up, you mean.
I could pull him for defamation of character only it would upset Ma, and
show up what a fool you were."

Danny did not prolong the interview. He let the Fullwood case go for the
time being.

Robert recounted the denouement to William that evening by the dying
kitchen fire. "The old hide caved-in; was glad to let all he money go and
give me the gig, or I'd have pulled him for blackmail. Asked me to have a
drink. 'Drink your ---- poisoned grog yourself!' I said. Thought he had
me cornered, but he found out his mistake."

Hennessy was a shrewd bargainer, William duly admired Robert's business
ability. "But all the same," he giggled, "you had better be careful next
time. You don't want to be swimming the Yackandandah for fun."


The next move was from Fullwood. He informed Delacy two days later in the
Township, that he would begin an action for a breach of promise. "Your
son made a convenience of my daughter's affections because he was caught
in another direction. He gets free, and leaves my daughter in such a
state of suffering that her health is permanently injured."

"And would you injure her health further by exposing her misplaced
affections for the tag-rag to delight in?" Danny was not to be stampeded
a second time.

"Robert shall marry or pay."

"_Ad Kalendas Graecas_, Fullwood--at the Greek Kalends."

"He shall marry or pay."

"Let sleeping dogs lie, is sound advice. I'll bid you good day."

"This is not the last of this," called Fullwood.

"Please yourself, Fullwood. Please yourself."

Fullwood did.

A few days later Robert was stunned to receive a legal document, which he
read behind the stable, his hands trembling. Just when he had been
cleared to have this dam burst, and no likelihood of a fresh miracle to
extricate him! He could not face the old man again. He would go to
Queensland this time. For the moment he went to his mother.

He had been saved from the disreputable Molly, but Grace, of unbroken
chastity, was equally formidable. Women were the deuce. It would be a
wily one who would get the better of him again, unless he meant to give
way to matrimony.

Johanna was Grace's advocate. The threat of Queensland made her urgent.
If Robert married Grace he would be set up near by, and Bewuck must be
his, he, the eldest son. Robert was afraid of the writ of summons. His
mother showed it to Danny and advocated marriage to scotch the trouble.

"Fullwood has no case against Robert or me. Sure, Fullwood is a
fool--hink-honk-ha-ing through that nose of his."

"And how could he be honking through annybody else's nose?"

"He's so smart with his law. Sure, I'll sit tight. It may be all cry and
no wool, as the dayvil said when he was shearing the pig." Robert was
thankful those days to work with William, who was putting up a split-rail
fence on the outer boundary to replace a cockatoo erection. At night they
shot possums off the crops or mended harness. They improved the hen house
and enlarged the orchard, and re-painted doors and gates for their
mother. It was Robert's first experience of hard work. During these
winter weeks when there was a lull at Burrabinga, Danny was glad to
remain at Bewuck for the outcome of the Fullwood complications.

No one was concerned about the lack of amusements for Harry, at
Burrabinga with no company but a deaf mute, and two stockmen, one of them
discarded by Bella Rafferty. Harry did not notice it himself. He never
expected to reap from others. His eager desire was to give what he could
with two-handed generosity. He brightened wet days and the evenings by
the vocal fires in telling stories. Aldon and Callahan listened
entranced. O'Neill struggled horse-deep through the drifts, risking his
life and suffering the belligerence of the station dogs against his own
pets, for the sake of such rare entertainment. When Harry came to the end
of stories he had read, he recited his own, now that William, the
literal, was not present to blight imagination. Right down to the present
day a remaining old hand or two can remember Harry's thrilling stories,
some of which were rooted in Celtic legend, while others welled from the
lad's own virginal depths to echo in the poignant silence of a land
bewitched.

Fullwood shortly reappeared at Bewuck demanding a conference with Robert.
He said he had no wish to wash dirty linen in public and was desirous of
settling the case out of court. This visit was due to his wife's
assurance that Johanna was eager for the match, but Danny forbade Johanna
to talk, and she retreated to her own sitting-room like an offended hen
and brooded on the elegance of her china dogs and wool mats, the
Waterford lustres and the cedar workbox, which she had maintained in the
tradition of a manorial hall despite all "oddities" of democracy or
difficulties of pioneering.

The men went to the old school-house and lighted a fire there. Delacy
smoked with loud smacking of his lips and an occasional "Moi, oh, moi!"
as if he were absently philosophizing, while Fullwood restated his case.

"What have you to say for yourself?" Fullwood suddenly demanded of
Robert.

"I--er--it wouldn't be fair to marry Grace when I don't care for her that
way."

"Do you refuse to fulfil your obligations to my daughter?"

"I never undertook any obligations."

"Oh, yes, you did, and I can prove it."

"No, I didn't. She was so dam' friendly--like all the girls, and I
couldn't be rude to her in return."

Danny continued his loud smacking and ejaculation as Fullwood rose to
whining rage. Suddenly Danny bluntly demanded of Robert if he had had any
wrongful relations with Grace. Robert was able to deny.

Fullwood ranted his astonishment that any one claiming to be a free man
and a gentleman should act as Robert was acting toward Grace, and that
Delacy should countenance him.

"You're not half so astonished as I am, and that is a lie, because I am
not astonished at all--having made me judgment whin I found out who
duffed all me cattle this last year. That's the reason, Fullwood, that no
son or daughter of me own will marry with wan of yours with me consent.
You compel me to let go the ears of me wolf. I'll not mention your
gentlemanly action nearly thirty years ago to set a lag to beat me up. I
have not proceeded against you out of mercy, and because of the
neeborliness of your wife. I could afford to lose me cattle better than
you could afford to lose your character, not your character, for you
haven't anny--but your reputation."

"By Christ, what do you insinuate?"

Joy spread through Robert. He nearly crowed aloud to be rescued by the
old man.

"Bluster won't help you with me, Fullwood...'Tis never used except in
weak cases--false feathers that floi off in the wind. You don't think I'm
an eft to be fooled by you--me with me invincible blackboy and two sons
the best trackers in the world, not to name Wong Foo with his eyes open,
and O'Neill trained by yourself. I give warning that the next tracking
will be done by the troopers. If me son has attracted your daughter and
has nothing to give in return, I regret it, Fullwood, and to make matters
square, though I have the evidence and the witnesses, I'll lay no charge
against you--this time."

"By God! you'll pay for this. I was willing to come to terms, but nothing
will hold me back from demanding my pound of flesh now. If you think I
shall tolerate this from a social inferior..."

Danny emitted a disconcerting grunt of amusement. "Bedad, every man
thinks himself the social superior of every other--'tis a matter of the
moind. The truth is that wan man is as good as another, if he is as good;
and none of us anny better than we should be. You can have as many social
pretensions as you can afford, but not at the expinse of duffing me
cattle hereafter, Fullwood."

Fullwood grabbed his hat. "I'll open proceedings next week."

"Go home to your daughter; tell her the truth of the fix you are in, and
she'll be willing to recover from her broken heart to save your social
pretensions."

"You, you young blackguard! I'll see you lagged yet."

Robert spluttered vulgar glee in Fullwood's face.

Daniel Brian Robert M. Delacy, who had been so genially conversational,
put down his pipe and stood up on his wooden leg, his hackle well up at
last.

"Fullwood," he thundered, and could have been heard half a mile away, but
only the Murrumbidgee was listening. "You've gone too far! Social
boasting wan above the other is waste of breath whin there is nothing for
anny of us but to carry our hides to the Lanyard in the ind. Manny a man
was in the chain-gangs wrongfully, and manny who were there by rights
were better than them who sent them there; but there's limits, Fullwood,
and you've gone outside them. I know you for what you are, wan of those
that should have been in the chain-gangs, you and your flash owld scrag
of a brother that's ran off and married on Bella Rafferty, whose mother
has the social pretensions of meeting the gentry on the wrong side of the
blanket. And bedad, while I remember it, I'll be obleeged for the
immediate return of me two owld mares. Wan is branded BB under the mane,
off-side, and the other GM under the saddle flan, near side, and wan has
a switch tail, and both will throw Nullah-Mundoey foals that are not to
be sneezed at.

"I know plenty to get you and James a long sentence of hard labour, and
if you don't reform you shall not be let off hereafter. And when you cast
social aspersions at me, it's time for an honest man to assert his
principles. I'll have you know, Fullwood, that me family have been honest
min as long as they are remembered, at home in the old country as well as
here. Me and me wife came here free and dragged with honest sweat,
cultivating here, and opening up the mountains, where no wan wanted to
go. I was none of those pretentious big capitalists that by the aid of
their tools, the Government officials, grabbed all the easy land and grew
rich by driving the convicts like slaves. I've worked for annything I
have, and have never touched a farthing of another roan's rights, If I
didn't make this testimony of me breed and me principles I'd be failing
as a decent citizen. As for the social inferior business, sure, I hope me
family will never be connected with you, for I know you as a cattle and
horse thief, and not anny more of a gentleman than old Rafferty. Rafferty
has the better blood--more upstanding manhood in it."

Fullwood muttered scurrilous insults. Robert for the first time was
delighted with his father.

"Keep your ill-nature and bad manners for someone else, Full-wood. I've
never been in a position where I've had to throw dung at another man
because of me own case being contimptible. Maybe I'd be a poisonous
crawler too in such exulcerated circumstances." This habit of
philosophical disquisition was more exasperating to his opponent than
normal vituperation.

"I'm giving you more than you'd ever get by breach of promise. Reform
your evil performances and receive your new sister-in-law. Me wife will
he pleased to know that her training has such rich results on black,
whoite and green. Me brave Johanna is all for the aristocracy, coming
from a fox-hunting squire, who is a great swell indeed, though why is not
to be seen under intelligent consideration."

Fullwood whined more insults.

"You'd better control yourself and stay to a meal," said Delacy at
length, too neighbourly to order Fullwood away. With the pluck of Conn of
the Hundred Battles, he was never belligerent.

Fullwood departed with renewed threats, and insults as copious as his
poverty of vocabulary permitted. "This is infamous--infamous! I'll have
it handled by the right authorities."

"It is so infamous that I'll leave it to Sergeant O'Gorman hereafter.
'Tis O'Gorman has the authority, and I the evidence. Remimber, I've
warned you."

When his father's back was turned, Robert thumbed his nose and swelled
his cheeks and made vulgar explosive sounds incongruous with his grandee
physique. He thoroughly earned Fullwood's enraged, "Flash lout!"

"Arrah, Fullwood, don't make a noise over sour grapes, it draws attintion
to your disappointment," said Danny, whose temper had returned to normal.


Johanna was startled to learn of the Fullwood thievishness. "Father was
immense," chortled Robert, as he told the tale with embroidery and
mimicry. "I didn't know he had it in him."

Johanna bridled. "Would I be wan to pick a nullity?"

"But he's so fond of making us take other people's dust."

"He's an oddity about democracy, and carries honesty to foolish extremes,
but sure, don't I remember him in County Clare when he was younger than
ye are."

Honoria was equally tonicked that her father should have defined his
social status. William cackled, "Robert won't have to go to the Darling
Downs till another darling chases him."

Robert differed from the other men of the family by his disposition to
gallantry, but they, measuring him by themselves, always rallied to
vindicate him. Freed from entanglements, he was his old self with
intensification, and, without reference to his father, invited his mother
to go to town in the gig. Danny's vanquishment of Fullwood had not
brought father and son nearer together, because Robert recognized that
the "old man", as he now began to call him, would not champion his son
any more than black, white or green, unless principle supported the case.

Robert itched to show himself abroad with his tandem, but Hennessy's
clearance was dependent upon the Delacy women's attitude to Molly
Macallister, and there was embarrassment in the confession involved.
Johanna had rehearsed to be haughty with Molly, but she hid her
disappointment and bowed to the necessity of completing Robert's success.

"Let this be a warning to ye, once and for all, me son."

"It's all that," agreed Robert, genial through gaining his point. "And
you can take it out on the Fullwoods. They are for everlasting trying to
put on airs, and they are in such a mess that they can't do anything."

"Poor Grace's only sin was to want ye, me boy; and her mother has been a
kind friend since I settled here. It's not in me to bite the hand that
stroked me." Johanna was silent a moment and then brightened, "But I'll
not allow that Fitzhugh faymale to condescind to me in future."

"'Tis mad weather to be going to town," said Danny, "With a wind that
would perish the Danes." But Robert wrapped his mother in wallaroo fur
and put a hot brick at her feet.

Hennessy's effusive reception had an emollient effect. Johanna's refusal
to encounter him during the embroglio had spared them both humiliation.
She extended her hand as an ancient Cooley might have done to a liege.

"Ye've come to see little Molly," said he, beaming broadly, and
continuing torrentially, "Shure, 'tis Herself, sez Oi, that is the rale
quality from the owld place itself, and none of this arrogance of
Johnny-come-lately-jumped-up Colonials. Oi've had me thrubbles r'arin'
Molly, Oi don't moind confessing, since ever me poor sister died sudden
and destitute. She now to have put upon me such a mistake that Oi seemed
harsh in me demands to Mr Delacy and that foine son of ye'rs, but they
carried it off as only rale gintlemen can. Whin Molly was off laughing at
us all, me chief disappointment was that she had picked wan that was not
such a gintleman as anny son r'ared by ye'rself would be, but Oi'm
thinking ye're the betther pleased for that, and I hope by that you'll
let bygones be bygones, if ye could see ye'r way to show a word of
friendliness to Molly, 'twould be the bist illustration in the worruld of
how the quality can act, and be the turning inflooence of her loife."

Johanna was willing to be a patroness of virtue. Macallister, Senior, had
arrived, and she was curious to see how he was bearing up as a
father-in-law. There was the glamour of wickedness as well as wealth
about that braw pioneer. Molly was now independent of her old
acquaintances' favour, and Johanna thought it showed good feeling in
Hennessy to value it.

"Shure, Mr Macallister, saynior, is here this very day. He would deem it
a great honour entirely to meet ye a dinner in his private soot. Oi shall
be as proud as if the Queen herself came to dine with me this day."

Johanna was relieved that the matter was thus arranged for her. She had
only to be a lady, just a little stiff, and all would be well for Robert.

Bandy Macallister had come down hot-foot from his gins on his
farthest-out station, away at Yambooca where the Darling meets the
Murray, where men had laws of their own, and Cockenzie men surfed out to
sea over the Murray bars in tublike craft with reckless .disregard of
consequences.

Bandy approved of marriage for others. For himself he preferred
mistresses. "As soon as you marry," he would declaim, "the besom begins
to dictate to you, but you can get rid of a mistress if she doesn't suit,
and she knows it, and that makes for peace and pleasant service."

Rumours of how Molly had trapped Athol so pleased him that he laughed
until he creaked at her demure airs, and thought that with her health and
prettiness she might be just the keeper to tame his son and carry on the
name. He desired a legally begotten grandson but had no parental
illusions concerning Athol.

Molly was expensively dressed and excessively "refined". Johanna was kept
at a distance. She was amazed by the cynical ribaldries of Bandy, and
glad to fall back on a genteel bearing and accept Hennessy's solicitous
attentions for her comfort. Athol was not present. Robert, likewise, had
the nous to absent himself.

Euphemia spread herself effulgently before Bandy, who would not risk
familiarity with her, but she put him in such coarse good humour that
she fancied she was advancing. She was gushing to Molly and contemptuous
of Johanna and her brogue. She had not been across the Murrumbidgee since
the autumn rains, and Charles Fullwood had forbidden his wife to mention
the acquisition of Bella, or Robert Delacy's and Grace's misunderstanding
until he should have brought off his _coup_.

"When my husband was stationed at. Dublin I had a personal maid with your
amusing brogue," she condescended to Johanna. "And ye liked it?"

"When I could understand it."

"And does it remoind ye of happy days?"

"Yes, when I was a girl bride."

"Then 'twill be pleasant for ye to be with ye'r new sister-in-law, me
surrvant gurll, Bella Raffenty that was. Sure, I had a struggle to
civilize her from a rough bare-footed shepherd's brat. Belike she has
picked up some of me brogue as well as some civilized habits, if she
doesn't fall back into her streelishness."

Mrs Fitzhugh was thunderstruck.

"'Tis true, thin?" inquired Hennessy.

"Yes. An elopement. Molly, ye're in the fashion. Sure, didn't I elope
meself, all the way from Ireland to New South Wales."

"I've heard of another in the air," said Molly, who loathed the widow
naturally from the beginning, and now because she suspected her uncle's
ambition and feared he might succeed, and disinherit his niece. "The lady
was your niece Grace."

"And who was the young man?" inquired Bandy of Mrs Fitzhugh.

"There was some lunkhead trying to pay her attentions, but his family
were socially inferior."

Noting the lightning in Johanna's eyes, Hennessy hastened to avert
friction. "If that is off, we'll have to foind another. Mr Macallister or
meself moight obloige, if we could foind the ladies."

"That would be easy with our bawbees," cackled Macallister. Here Hennessy
was called from the room by a groom who had difficulty in restraining an
English aristocrat--a victim of delirium tremens--from burning clown the
stables where he was lodged, in an attempt to get rid of the reptiles in
his straw. "Can I have your word to rope him?" demanded the man before he
was out of hearing.

Johanna, inflamed by Euphemia's last insult, could scarcely bridle
herself to inquire, "Are ye not going to elope ye'rself? 'Twould stop the
high talk and he a ripe romance."

Euphemia's mind, running on the senior Macallister, was prepared to he
indulgent about badinage. "Dear me, do people talk?"

"Sure, gags wouldn't stop them. Some say ye roust even be secretly
married.''

"Monstrous! I've riot known Mr Macallister a week."

The ladies had risen and were on the way to the parlour. "Och, 'tis not
Mr Macallister at all, but Mr Hennessy himself, and ye living here so
continted and comfortable."

"My goodness, woman," she said, completely outraged, "He a convict. An
ignorant bog-trotting Irishman--an innkeeper-servant who is helped by my
patronage!"

"I've been longer exiled at the furthest extremity of the globe than ye
have, and to be sure, society is topsy-turvy out here. I never thought I
was training Bella Rafferty to be wan of me equals...There's a deal of
speculation tinny way."

"Among vile scum of servants, I presume."

"I see no surrvants but me own, and I never encourage them to be vulgar
at the expense of their betters. Sure, ye've been settled here a long
time now, and 'tis to be seen that Hennessy is powerfully set up with ye.
Bella Rafferty, as ye'r sister-in-law, wanst removed, and Molly as Mrs
Macallister, must be a great encouragement to him."

"But a woman of my family--a married woman--surely no one would dare?"

"Sure, widows are said to be more comprehensive than shy young girls in
all their modesty. After love's young dream is dispersed, it becomes a
matter of business, and Hennessy is a powerful man. He owns the
Township."

The Fitzhugh gave Johanna a curdling look and swept from her presence to
her own apartments. This evil Irish fishwife could not be concocting her
slanders without foundation. Euphemia recalled passages with Hennessy
which she attributed to Irish exuberance. The odious presumptuous
monster! She thought with alarm of her bill. And the Bella elopement,
when she had been awaiting James as a possibility! Her means would not
run to Sydney. She must return to Heulong. The Colonies were a racking
nightmare; but a colder, more cramped prospect was the life open to her
in England, in shabby lodgings with a chasm between her and desirable men
and the competition!

Macallister followed Johanna to the parlour--a tremendous compliment--and
overheard part of the brush between the women. "You've disposed of the
big besom in one shot," he grinned, placing a chair for her. "She
desairved it...my certes, Mrs Delacy, I wish my Athol had married one of
your daughters, if you have any like yourself. I hear there is no
certainty but that your son has fathered me a grandchild. I would approve
of the breed."

"Mr Macallister, for shame! Ye shock me. Me son..."

"No offence, little lady, no offence!" The twinkle in his eye was so
disturbing that they both laughed.

Johanna preened her draperies and in victory was amiable to Molly. She
was extra virtuous of deportment before the rakish Bandy, but invited him
to bring his daughter-in-law to Bewuck, "Sure, me husband dearly loves a
little political conversation with anny wan from the old country."

Hennessy was so excited by this invitation that he made Johanna a present
of stuffed humming birds under a gloss globe, an elegant and fashionable
ornament which he dearly prized. Johanna carried it home in front of her
like a monument.

"By damn!" exclaimed Danny, when all was explained. "'Tis you that has
got the wedding present on account of Molly, instead of having to provide
wan, me brave Johanna. Dayvil if ever I heard of such another propitious
advinture." He laughed until tears ran down his cheeks.

"Whin was I ever a nullity?" cried Johanna.

"Ma got a prize for swimming the Yackandandah without getting wet,"
chortled William.

While the novelty lasted, one or other would slip in to dote on the new
ornament as it sat on a wool mat on Johanna's round table of walnut with
claw and ball feet.

Robert had Hennessy's note, so worded that he had quittance of his debts
to date in consideration of the misunderstanding about the Molly McCathie
elopement, but only on the further understanding that Robert's women folk
were not to slight Molly Macallister. Before Robert could show it about
or tell Hennessy to go to hell, he would have to pay his debts in full.



CHAPTER XXIII


During the absence of Johanna and Robert, Danny arranged his "moind".
Robert's returning swagger had determined him. There had been more good
luck than triumph of principle in Robert's exoneration, and, in addition,
Danny was not sufficiently tanistic to enjoy the election of his
successor thus early in his career.

"I've been thinking," he said that night. "Robert is getting too soft and
ladified around town here. He has never done his share on the axe, or in
camping out, and fencing, and running wild horses and cattle. Burrabinga
would be the making of him, and remove him from the wrong women--that
Molly Macallister piece--who I'm thinking marriage won't settle for
long--and the poor Fullwood flourbag on a pole, with a lip that you could
trip on."

"I'd like to see me boy safely married, which he can't be if he's strewed
up there among the dingoes."

"Arrah, he needs straightening-up. The Urquhart girls are as fine a lot
of young people as ever walked."

"And Janet designed for William?"

"Och, he walks around her and doesn't know how to come to a head. There
is a drove of others. It maybe will bring Della up to the mark to see
Norah ahead of her."

Both families were agreeable to the marriage of Norah and Stewart Butler,
which was to take place five weeks hence.

Robert was relieved to go to Burrabinga, out of reach of Grace. He and
William set off accompanied by a lusty brigade of dogs. Danny had to tie
up his to keep them at Bewuck. Even so, two broke their chains and
departed. William was to send Della home as soon as the river fell.
Johanna said that she would provide no more wives for the unconvicted
gentry by strewing her daughters and their "surrvants" about the furthest
extremities of the wilderness.

Sandy Urquhart escorted Della home and spent some days with Danny in
yarning, in visiting the neighbours, and the two old mates got drunk
together in the Township. Through this fall, Danny lost the ground he had
been regaining as public consort if not private spouse of Johanna. She
relegated him to the "ind room" again on the excuse that her head
suffered from the perfume of rum and tobacco combined.

Danny felt this banishment to be a social disgrace out of all proportion
to its actuality, especially as he had no sensuality to harry him, but
his honest idea of the sanctity, the inviolability of the marriage-bed
demanded that it should be double. To propitiate Johanna he permitted his
grog to be entirely regulated by her, thus emulating Sandy Urquhart, who
had to submit to Janet's dispensing. Johanna never had to endure any
bullying or malicious onslaughts from Danny comparable with those
suffered by Janet. Danny's disposition contained the innocence of a pure
heart mixed with considerable wisdom, as ail thorough-going decency
demands, and in the rationing of grog, his taste for alcohol bitted him
more firmly in the fall of his life than ever his sexual appetite had
done in his prime.


Bela Rafferty came home to Heulong at the time that Della returned to the
other bank of the river. James had a fleshly craving for her--personable
young women were scarce--and he and Charles had finally been held to
ransom. Married, she would be their accessory, otherwise she threatened
to expose them. She and Aldon, the Delacys' stockman, had the evidence.
Charles had resisted at first, fearing his wife's attitude. She was a
meek woman, but honourable, and the sister of that formidable brigadiers
Euphemia Fitzhugh. Bella threatened boldly. James coveted her, and loss
of social caste would have crumbled Charles. Bella drove her bargain to
the hilt. She must be openly accepted by the family, like a certain Mrs
Wells, and "made a lady of". Her idea of this was fine clothes, idleness
and the right to order servants to do her bidding.

The advocacy of Bella devolved upon Charles. He drew attention to her
good looks and pointed out that Mrs Delacy had partly civilized her. The
marriage was no worse than that of Athol Macallister to Molly McCathie,
and many others contracted by squatters because of the scarcity of
well-bred women.

Mrs Fullwood said that Molly was free from family except an uncle, who
could leave her much property, and that she had been educated in a
convent, whereas Bella did not know her letters. But Mrs Fullwood had to
resign herself to one more cross and consent to train Bella. Bella was to
forswear her family: she and the family agreed to this.

There were times when Bella was not all a cross. Euphemia, disturbed to
find that there was truth in Mrs Delacy's riposting, had returned to
Heulong, despite the river Murrumbidgee. She was enraged by such a family
accretion as Bella, but Bela, shameless, and sure of her men, was not
squelchable by a dozen Euphemias, and the encounters were studded with
comedy.

Charles felt like hanging himself to have given-in when he found that
Delacy had long known the facts of the cattle-lifting, and was not going
to prosecute. He threatened to throw Bella out, and told her it was he
who had the whip-hand of Delacy through the fear of an action for breach
of promise, but Bella bared her teeth and told Charles that she knew of a
certain widow in a pub on the way to Riverina to whom had gone as hush
money large sums gained from other men's cattle.

The elopement was the subject of gossip from Goulburn to Gool Gool,
having superseded the Molly McCathie scandal-romance. Then it was
displaced by the Bewuck wedding.

The Fullwoods presented a problem. Danny said that he had no wish to
maintain enmity with "anny" man--black, white or green--so long as he did
not duff Burrabinga cattle. Johanna said she had nothing but goodwill for
Grace and her mother, but could not risk sending an invitation and being
set down.

"'Tis a good policy to let the other fellow do the setting down. Whin
you come off top it rankles, but if he snubs you, it pleases his vanity
and doesn't hurt you."

"Likely I'd put meself in an invidious position!"

"Invidious! By damn! All this tongue-lashing is chaff in the wind. Invite
them all, and if they rayfuse, 'tis their own dispensation. The boys have
not reported any cattle missing lately."

"What about Bella Rafferty?"

"Sure, Bella, whoi, Bella will be the flower of that flock! Have ye
forgotten the widow Fitzhugh?"

"It's the sunflower she'll be--a great big red wan with bunions, if such
iver was seen. I'd better invite Hennessy to dance with her," giggled
Johanna, who had her sense of the humorous. People could make an "omnium
gatherum" of a wedding; she remembered her girlhood, when all attended as
their right. Hennessy, if honoured, would not be angry with Robert.


At the festivities, Mrs Janet had sometimes to confront Sandy and
concentrate until her stare grew glassy. She could not risk his breaking
loose to chop up the furniture or smash the globe of the humming
birds--so much admired. Great was her relief when he retired to the "ind
room" from whence his snores accomnanied the dancing. What mattered the
giggles they evoked when compared with his usual threats to kill her with
an axe or to burn down the house. Mrs Urquhart was free to enjoy Bella
and to wonder why she had thrown herself away on bob-tailed old James.
She invited her to make an extended visit to Keebah. Bella's laugh was
the heartiest, her manner the most friendly and boisterous of any
present. She had no shame about her past, no airs about her present, nor
fears for her future. She slapped the old men on the back, and rallied
the young ones like a popular mid-wife having a night out with her
clientele.

Euphemia Fitzhugh was present. She could not afford to neglect
opportunity. "Ye are welcome," said Johanna in receiving her, "and I've
invited Mr Hennessy specially for ye, his first time in me house. He's
still on the market, and the richest bachelor in the district."

This early put Euphemia in her place. Fight died in her before the
spanking self-assurance of Mrs James, former servant to her hostess, and
"adulterated" daughter of old Rafferty, as the wags put it, whose wife
had been a passenger on a "girl ship", and boasted that she had been the
toy of the officers on a warship when becalmed in the doldrums. Such a
mess! Euphemia raised a smile by main force for Hennessy, remembering her
bill.

Hennessy was effulgent and mellow. He had always liked Delacy and
respected Johanna. There had been years when Danny's fearless
straight-going had had its effect in reclaiming him.

Doogoolook and Maeve were paid every attention. Wong Foo was resplendent
and had brought a pack load of presents for the bride. The story was
retold of how Delacy had saved the life of Foo, and also of the two
blacks, and made them members of the family.

Young Harry was excited by the company. He had much of solitude and had
grown so shy that he would hide behind a tree at the approach of a
stranger, but Bella "brought him out". He worshipped all the girls as
divinities. His hero was Robert, who had such a fine swagger before maids
and matrons, who danced even with the terrifying Mrs Fitzhugh, and was
such a "ladies' man" that Danny, for safety, acted as patrol. Harry's
eyes dilated to note what would happen when Robert and Grace met, but
they managed to keep apart with skill. The two senior Fullwoods had had
business to take them to Goulburn. Gerald Butler, who found Della
difficult of access, was seen to dance with Grace and saved her from
being a wallflower. Della danced more often with Hennessy than with
Gerald, which delighted Hennessy.

The carriage took the young people to their new home, fifteen miles
distant, on a run called New Glenties, in honour of the parent station,
which was named from old Butler's place of origin. Robert drove four
horses with ribbons in the manes and Harry sat beside him.

The vehicle was disabled on its return journey down the cutting, so it
was propped up in its house and sank to decrepitude. The poultry in the
end had more use of it than ever Johanna. Nettles grew about it in
summer. Hens brought forth new life in its shelter as it drowsed in the
ceaseless lullaby of the river and its sighing trees--the pioneer
carriage on the Murrumbidgee.


Much of the attention given to Della at the wedding, by reason of her
residence in the mountains and as mistress of the new Mrs Fullwood, took
the form of jokes about her being an old maid. Gerald Butler was as
assiduous as ever when the wedding pother subsided but Della would having
nothing to do with "Molly McCathie's leavings". Gerald retorted that if
she wanted a sissy who was not somebody's leavings she would have to
clutch him straight from the cradle as she was now old enough to be the
grandmother of all the bachelors excepting a few shepherds and Hennessy.

The lively girl grew silent and thin and did not enjoy circumscription by
her mother after her liberty and consequence at Burrabinga.

Danny was concerned about her old-maidism, though she was not yet thirty.
Johanna watched with satisfaction. "What can ye expect after strewing her
among the dingoes? It's meself that is thankful that she has not taken up
with some cattle duffer."

The responsibility for his daughter's spinsterhood, thus thrust upon him,
impelled Danny to action. As soon as Christmas was past he decided to
visit "me dear old frinds the Evanses, who saved me life in the first
place, but for which we wouldn't be here at all. Maybe the great
frindship will act as incentive for Della to pick up with wan of the
young men...Sure to think it has been al this life-time and us never to
have seen each other!"

The carriage demanded four horses and Robert, the whip, and Danny was
bent on keeping Robert Chanticleer in his place. He harnessed three
horses abreast to the gig. Della rode her pleasant mannered
Nullah-Mundoey and wore a habit that swept the grass and had to be
gathered up from snags. Victorian draperies call for prestidigitation in
handling but the need produced the virtuosi. Doogoolook rode too and
opened the gates or sliprails. Some parts of the country were now fenced
between Bewuck on the Murrumbidgee and Kilpoonta on the Lachlan.
Doogoolook led a lovely Nullah-Mundoey, broken by Harry and paced by
Robert, for Mrs Evans in memory of the mare she had given Danny in his
need. Packed in the gig, or as excrescences on the horses, were other
presents, including rose cuttings and a China peach tree, two guinea
hens, a specially cured ham, a "kag" of dried fruit, a china teapot, and
some yards of silk brocade. Nothing could be too goo for the Evanses.

There was joy, and effusive demonstration of it in the reunion of Danny
with Mr and Mrs Evans, but as sometimes happens with all but the rarely
understanding of wives on coming in contact with a husband's life-saving
friends for the first time, Johanna did not quite thaw.

Della was a disappointment to her father and the Evanses. They were sure
she must have favoured her mother's family. The eldest Evans, four years
her junior, seas the nearest to her age, but he told his mother that she
was as dismal as a motherless foal--a real old maid, and easy to see why.
Della, in her turn, said she had never seen such a stupid boor as Penhryn
Evans; that he never opened his mouth except to put food in it, and that
it was big enough for hint to put his foot there too.

"Moi, oh, moi! What can be coming over the young people, at all? Whoi,
the very breed of the Evanses would attract me. Do you see anything at
all the matter with young Evans?" he demanded of Johanna.

"Sure, after a view of him, I can see whoi all the girls are woild for my
Robert."

"Arrah, but thirty years in the future is what tests a marriage."

"Och, if marriages were gone into knowing what thirty years would bring,
most women, I'm thinking, would be nuns in preference," There was nothing
further after a visit of some weeks but to return all the way from
Kilpoonta on the Lachlan to Bewuck on the Murrumbidgee, where the latest
gossip was that Gerald Butler was going to Heulong regularly. Della was
now without a suitor. Danny interrogated her, "What is wrong with the
young men? Are you hankering after someone you can't get?"

Della said she cared for no one, and unless she cared she preferred to
remain unmarried.

"Leave Della be," advised her mother. "She will be a pleasant companion
to me--and ye too whin we grow older. Ye won't always be able to cover
the country like a wallaby."

Johanna cuddled her idea of Della being a bride of the Church, thus
should she win glory and sanctuary for herself and atone for her mother.

Della conveniently turned religious at that date. Johanna let her alone
in the Church of England for the time, but was bent on turning her
thoughts the right way later. She visited Father O'Brien, when he toured
the district, and gained comfort and some holy books lost to her for
years. When the Reverend Father went back to Sydney he sent her a print
of the Blue Madonna elegantly framed, which Johanna made the centre of a
shrine in her bedroom. Danny was inclined to oppose, but philosophy
restrained him. "Sure, 'tis meself would be the slave to superstition to
think there could be harm in a pretty picture. 'Tis only when it is
worshipped as an idol that the mischief enters, and I'll have no idols in
my house. I'll have no man tell me how to think, or stand between me and
God."

"Ye have ye'r own clergyman come here," said Johanna, "and he tells you
how to think."

"I reserve me own opinion."

"Sure, 'tis ye that has all the wisdom."

"No wan has anny wisdom when it comes to an altercation, but if the
parson tried to dictate to me about the mysteries that are hid from us
all--black, whoite or green, Protestant, Catholic, Jew Pagan, sure I'd
tell him to go to hell at wanst. That's the privilege of Protestantism,
that if ye have a moind ye can use it; but if ye had a moind, Johanna,
and it went contrary to Father O'Brien Father Shannon, Shannon, there
would be the dayvil to pay, and talk of damning, and look askance. I'll
never submit to the like of and me a free man."

"Ye'll submit though to a poipe and a kag of rum," sniffed Johanna.



CHAPTER XXIV


Danny had banished the second planet from his personal sky.

Johanna was dependent upon hint once more. He sank into the comforts of
Bewuck varied by visits to Norah and Stewart Butler at New Glenties.
There was the expectation of grandchildren. There Were cures for rust in
wheat, and new varieties of potatoes, but with the slackening of effort
he suffered front dullness, and went often to the Township for the
alleviation of conversation. He had a lively interest in the progress of
the Overland Telegraph to Darwin, and the explorations of Forrest. He was
conversant with Polynesian affairs, had opinions upon the annexation of
the Fiji Islands, and the proposal for a Customs Union with a levy on
trade along the Murray. He threw himself with gusto into the fine points
of the Parkes-Robertson Parliamentary wrangle, and elections were high
points of existence to him. His voice, and that of other settlers could
be heard literally for miles when loosened by grog and opinionatedness
regarding public issues towards which Johanna maintained an indifference
which was accepted as typical of women.


Burrabinga remained a camp stripped of table and bed linen; crockery when
broken was replaced by tin ware. Danny said there was no "sinse" in
wasting elegancies on "min". Saplings sprang up in the orchard, holes
were worked in the fence of the garden, and marsupials destroyed
everything. The possums were always first to harvest the fruit. The
presence of women was necessary to drive the Delacys to home comforts.
They never used any but packing needles, nor learned to cook beyond salt
junk and damper and tea without milk.

Robert missed human association after his reign at Bewuck, but quickly
arranged the work so that others took the brunt of running wild cattle
and horses by Bullock Gap or Dead Horse Plain while the business down
Keebah way fell to him. For this he took the best saddle-horses. There
was a difference between the saddle- and stock-horse as wide as that
maintained by Johanna between herself and the "gurrls" she trained as
"surrvants". The saddle-horses were bent to paces as young ladies and
gentlemen were taught deportment and dancing.

Robert's taste in horses was infallible, but his aristocrats were
sometimes second-rate for following mobs up and down their native
precipices, and he was out-classed in rough riding. Nevertheless Harry
worshipped him and took hard labour off his shoulders as much as
possible. Harry had his father's fearlessness. He craved a hero, to die
for if necessary, and Robert, with his plumes freshly upon him, fitted
the conception, accepted the homage and brought a new element into the
Keebah circle. He wore top boots, stylish breeches and showy spurs, had a
marvel of the whip-maker's art, arid was following by all the dogs.
Harry's whip was roughly plaited by himself, had a hickory handle, and
his raiment was in keeping, but the contrast he presented only added to
his pride in Robert as a dandy. Robert had glamour, with the tales of
girls doing scandalous things to trap his love, and glamour is as
necessary as salt to youths of a certain temperament.

William was more judicial and critical, and his attitude grew censorious
after Janet Urquhart fell desperately in love with Robert. He had never
believed Robert guiltless in the Grace and Molly cases. No charmer ever
is, Janet, Elspeth, and Jeanie, all three, could see no other sun when
Robert's shone. 'William contemptuously attributed this to Robert's
breeches and boots. He secured a good turn-out for himself but
nevertheless remained an honest frump. He had no long mirror in which to
appraise the difference in deportment between himself and his brother,
but saw it in the indifference of the girls.

The community received another woman. The Charles Fullwoods had had
enough of Bella, and she was weary of the restrictions of Heulong. She
had acquired a set of manners that could be put on and off like a dolman,
she could write a letter and read the newspaper, and so was literate for
the times. She insisted upon James making a home near Bullock Gap, at
Cherry Tree Hill, and the Delacy men did not stand aloof. Fullwood had
not been caught stealing their cattle for over two years, and there was
no withstanding Bella. She gave them good meals. She rode to Burrabinga
with a pack-horse and possessed herself of flowers and shrubs from
Della's garden. The Urquharts and Anguses liked her. She was a woman free
from complainings, ready and able to bring forth a brood in solitude and
hardship. If her husband took a nobbler or a beast here and there, no one
held her responsible.

Tom Angus had married in India and meant to make his home there. George
Angus arrived to support the precocious Ned, who had been carrying on
alone at Birrabee with a stockman. Robert very nearly had to take second
place. George had more address than all the Delacys together, and handled
harness horses in a way to turn Robert pale with envy, especially as he
was jailed in the valley behind Delacy's mountain to be scaled only by
horses as surefooted as goats.

The Keebah girls thus had two glories, with William as a fallback and
young Harry and Ned as reserves. Janet adored Robert, but he was no
longer very young, had had two disastrous entanglements, and could find
pleasure in more than one woman at a time. Little Jeanie was the joy of
Ned and Harry, to whom a divinity was necessary. Ned missed Della, who
had so long been his tutoress.

Saturday nights now found the young men gathered at Keebah instead of
Burrabinga. There was a deal of horseplay and practical jokes. William
saw what he saw and thought what he thought. Having been buried in
solitude, he was too shy and nervous to push to the front, so resigned
himself to talk with old Urquhart of the relation of fencing and dingoes
to woolgrowing.

One evening a stupendous racket denoted a race in progress. All the
hardwood forms from the school-house and kitchen were in line, each with
a jockey--males astride, females crumpled sideways. The male winner was
to bestow a kiss upon a maiden of his own choosing. The lady winner was
to name a gentleman to embrace her. The proprieties, independent of
science, held that male _amour_ was a Niagara that must be stemmed, and
that women's resistance, armoured in distaste, had to be stormed.

William longed to be a contestant, but would have bolted from the prize
as dangerous immorality. The men romped away with limb-endangering
determination to be first. The girls all ended level as a concession to
self-conscious modesty. Robert proclaimed that every girl had won. Much
giggling and blushing ensued.

George Angus won and claimed Janet, the handsome and inarticulate, whose
unselfish appreciation of the social contributions of others made her a
favourite with exhibitionists. Harry said that George had not won
fairly. He resented George's aspiring to any jealous young woman
favoured by Robert, but this George ignored as jealousy. The girls were all
compelled to choose. Baby Jeanie picked both Harry and Ned, and hilarity
relieved the tension. The Keebah boys were dependent on Ellen Learmont
from farther down the river. No one challenged their interest in the
girl, who was of the Grace Fullwood type, material for drudging wife and
uncomplaining mother, but unalluring.

In the second race Robert chose Janet, who exclaimed, "Oh, I couldn't be
kissing with every one looking on!"

Laughter and bucolic ribaldry greeted this, but Robert was equal to the
occasion. "Come into the garden among the roses; anything to please a
lady."

A dangerous precedent was established. William concluded that all the
girls were as hold as Bella, and took to his role of Joseph. He neither
desired to sin nor to be subjected to shopworn goods. Thereafter he was
regarded as being "cut out for an old bachelor". The Anguses brought
their sister Susan to Birrabee, a bright girl who could ride as well as
her brothers, and was popular with all. Three of the young Urquharts fell
prone in love with her, and Mrs Urquhart took her word on household
arrangements as inspired. George hoped that Robert would be attracted by
her and leave Janet alone, but Robert and Susan played the same game and
did not progress beyond the preliminary moves.

Soon the friendliness between the Delacys and Anguses was endangered.
Robert could do no wrong in Harry's eyes, and so when the Anguses clashed
with Robert they could do no right. It fell out one Monday morning as the
young men rode from Keebah that Harry was hopping off his horse every
mile or so and shaping-up to George on Robert's behalf.

Robert accepted all homage without embarrassment, but this demonstration
distressed George. He liked young Harry, and both Anguses were bent on
keeping out of trouble. George wished to marry Susan to a Delacy or an
Urquhart and himself marry Janet. One Saturday night the school-house
was used by Robert and Janet when reaping prizes, and they were unaware
of the old tutor in the corner away from the firelight. He reported what
he saw. Mrs Urquhart was always for peace and did not suspect evil until
its fruits were ripe, but she could not calm Sandy even by laxity in
grog rationing.

On the following Saturday the gathering was at Birrabee, where the
Urquharts did not appear. Their absence was attributed to a thunderstorm.

During the week Harry went to Keebah with an important letter for the
post. For once Robert had left this pleasant task to his brother while he
packed salt out towards Bullock Gap and had a feast with Wong Foo. Harry
returned at midnight on the same day, having pushed his brave brumby
there and back without calling at Birrabee.

No sooner had the dogs announced him at the stable gates, a quarter of a
mile from the house, than Urquhart had put out to meet him. "He must have
been looking out for me with his old spy glasses. Holy Ghost! He had a
gun, and I thought he was going to fire it off. Acted as if I was a
bushranger!"

"Was he drunk?"

"Hanged if I know. He didn't let me get near enough to smell him. He sat
straight enough on the old moke."

"Didn't he make any explanation?"

"I was so taken back, I didn't know which way to look for Sunday."

"But he must have said something."

"He said a whole thunderstorm. If one of us comes inside his boundaries
again he is going to put a bullet in us. He said he treated us like his
own family, and this is the low-down way we've treated him in return. I
said I never did anything. He said if I didn't, it was only because I was
not old enough. He said William was all right."

"Robert up to his tricks again."

"He said Robert and George, but I bet it's that Chow of a George, and
he's putting it on Robert."

"You have the faith of a mother in Robert, but the Yackandandah can't
always be swum dry."

"You mean that old Urquhart is trying to trap him now for his females
like Fullwood and old Hennessy did? Golly, it must be exciting to be
Robert."

"It will be so exciting some day that he'll be facing a jury, and they
Won't be so damn' partial as you and Ma."

"How can Robert help it when the women are just mad after him? Gosh, old
Sandy was crying like an old woman."

"Aw, the D.T.s often takes them crying. Did you see the old woman or any
of the boys?"

"Not a sign of any one else. He was sitting in wait."

"How could he be sitting in wait in the middle of the week?"

"Find out for yourself. I'm not going to have a gun at me again, and be
called names that would blister an anvil."

Now justified in his policy of total abstinence from any association with
the girls. William could afford to laugh. "I reckon the old man caught
you slobbering over Jeanie."

He suggested that they should say nothing and await developments. Harry
accepted this with regard to the Anguses, but warned Robert, who
swaggered, though he was startled, and went in fear of old Urquhart
appearing to haul him away to marry Janet. A week's uneasiness brought
him to say that he had heard of some blood horses up by Wild Horse Plain
and would join O'Neill and try to trap them. In view of the fondness and
softness of Janet it would be safer to be out of the way for a while. He
made jokes about going into the wombat wilds to take the hard going, but
William inquired, "When old Sandy comes looking for you, shall we say
which way you went?"

Robert departed two mornings later on a prime Nullah-Mundoey, with the
two best pack-horses and a contentious retinue of dogs. William and Harry
were left to the boundary fence they were erecting between Birrabee and
Burrabinga--hard, heavy work, felling trees and rolling them into line in
rough country. They toiled all day long in the vast solitude where never
a man appeared, and in the evening had salt beef and damper washed down
by tea, and then rolled in a rug before a fire and slept to the lullaby
of dingoes, curlews, and other night creatures, and the bullocks' bells
against the delicate song of some rivulet. They had put up fifteen miles
single-handed and the Anguses were working their way towards them.

In due time they met, and Harry, blaming George for the departure of
Robert, hurled insinuations of his being at the root of the trouble with
Urquhart. George tried to keep the peace, but Harry was not to be quieted
and grandiloquently challenged George to a duel.

George laughed in his face. "What about?"

"You know well enough. Others have suffered from being mixed up with
you."

A cloud passed across George's pleasant face. "If that's it, how shall we
fight? Fists--I'd be guilty of cruelty to animals."

"Revolvers."

"No thanks. I'm not a murderer."

William tried to bring Harry to sense. At length a riding duel was
decided upon, but the logical William wanted to know what it would prove.

"Which is best rider, I suppose," said George, still in charge of his
temper.

Ned strove for peace, almost to tears, as a warm affection had always
existed between him and Harry. However, rough riding was in the day's
work. Little harm could come of such a contest but waste of time, and the
Delacys had all the time of the year at their disposal. Each was to bring
in an outlaw, five or six years of age and never yarded, over precipitous
country. They tossed for places and Harry got a roan brumby that ran
beyond Bullock Gap, George a chestnut colt towards Dead Horse Plain.

The stock-horses were saddled before dawn. Harry had picked a quiet, low,
long, goose-rumped animal as ugly as sin. She was flat-sided, had a big
head and always a long tail, which ill-suited her, but she went raving
mad if it was reduced.

George laughed at her appearance, She had been out at grass for twelve
months following a staking and he had not yet seen her feats in
descending impossible grades strewn with every kind of obstruction, from
fallen giants to wombat holes. Georges nag was a piebald colt,
phenomenally active, a bit pig-mouthed but acquainted with rough country.

They started at sunnise, reviled by William and Ned as fools. These two
agreed to follow, Ned on Harry's trail, William on George's in case of
accident.

A few miles along his way Harry found the tracks of George's mob leading
towards Bullock Gap, and presently saw that the two colonies had combined
so both men started after thorn together. William and Ned came up at a
strategic point, and in the excitement of finding the colts in company
turned it into a special day's muster.

An escaped blood mare fell early and hipped herself. Ned's filly put her
fetlock out and was also dropped from the chase. He had to make to Wong's
and borrow a horse to return to camp. William, a fearless rider, kept up
with the others. The wild horses frequently disappeared with a crash of
hoofs and the dislodged boulders cannoning down the gorges, and reached
some distant crest, only to be out-manoeuvred by one or other of the
pursuers. A young stallion fell on a slippery sideling near Cherry 'Free
Hill and broke his neck. A handsome grey mare snapped her leg in a tough
vine; never were there so many casualties in a day. George and Harry rode
as if on winged steeds that lifted them past obstacles on ways that the
young men in cold blood could scarcely have trodden on foot--the fastest
mob in the region followed by the most reckless riders. In the afternoon
William was left behind by the laming of his horse,

The duellists remained, joined to yard the two remaining colts, which
they did at sundown, having run all day without food or drink. Even the
wild things were weary, and after one mad rush at the rails, which they
struck with their forefeet, settled down defeated, with wide nostrils and
heaving flanks.

George had been so careful, as well as skilled, in avoiding jostling that
Harry was warmed to admiration and a realization that there might be two
sides to the question of George and Robert as stars in one firmament.

He flung off his suffering, but far hum foundered beast, held her from
more than sip of water and came forward to congratulate George, but
George spoke first, "I take off my hat to you, Harry. You're a rider for
fair! If you could get a saddle on hell you'd ride it to a standstill;
and that mare is a wonder. Any time you want to sell her, let me have
first offer."

Harry was equally cordial. The enmity engendered by his unreasoning
partisanship was healthfully tempered and reflection was later to incline
him to judgments in line with his father's.



CHAPTER XXV


Old Sandy did not come to Birrabee or Burrabinga, nor go to Bewuck. The
young men kept to their own lairs and ceased to visit. To William,
Robert's disappearance was evidence of guilt. When O'Neill came for
rations he reported that Robert had stayed only two days with him.
William set out to ascertain if there had been more than alcoholic
distemper in old Urquhart.

If the Anguses had been chased from Keebah they were keeping it to
themselves. "We've been imprisoned for ages," said Susan, with her usual
manner. "Every Saturday we waited for you till it was too late to set
out. I've had a scalded hand, too." She still had a rag on it.

William rode on to Keebah. When the dogs barked, Donald hastened to meet
him, red with embarrassment. "I'm awfully sorry, Bill, but it would be
better not to go to the house till things blow over."

"I'm not a horse or cattle thief. I'll certainly keep away but I must
know the reason of the insult to my character."

"There's nothing against you. Bill...only...well...you see Robert is too
much of a ladies' man for the dad's taste. The tutor has reported more
than happened between Robert and Janet in the school-house, I reckon."

"I don't like this."

"No more do I. but what can I do? The dad has forbidden any
communication. I thought we could meet at Birrabee, but that has gone
smash, too."

"And how arc you going to see Susan?"

"This can't last," Donald reddened and turned to other topics. "Ma has
been in bed with an accident. It keeps Elspeth busy, with Janet away."

"Where is Janet?"

"Gone to Sarah's for a spell...There has been the devil to pay,  I can
tell you...If you are hungry I'll sneak you some grub."

William disclaimed hunger. He lacked the address to go past Donald to
ventilate the matter with Sandy. It was a blow to an inexperienced young
man of his probity in every relation, including women--especially
including women. The unfairness of being declassed because of the
behaviour of Robert or George rankled in his breast. It was imperative
that his father should he informed. Harry's concern was to find Robert
and reinstate him, but William insisted that he should stick to
Burrabinga. A day later William rode down by way of Learmont's, passing
Keebah.

"Be the poipers!" exclaimed Danny. "Robert is a light scoundrel with
women, and I shan't have him ruining the daughters of me best friend. Who
took me family in when I was lost? This viper in the grass to be me own
son! Janet, the foinest girl in the Colony!"

"Och! Janet!" snapped Johanna, "a great soft bag of flour that could no
more take care of herself than a pumpkin."

"The more disgrace then to Robert that she should not be safe. Get in the
brown mare for the morning. I'll follow Robert to--to...sure, I'll follow
till I catch him, if 'tis off the ind of the continent. This time he'll
fulfil his duty. He's escaped too lightly hitherto."

"Yell find another bull's nest," said Johanna. "Robert cannot be
responsible for the sinful capers of drabs that should be shut up and
whipped and be made to leave him alone."

"Och, woman, there is no consistency at you at all. Was it you or me that
was trying to rise among the gentry by collaring Grace? Answer me, yes or
no."

It was liberation to ascend to the plateau and turn again towards the
beckoning hills, blue and still, wreathing on and on to Victoria. Bewuck
irked him but he would not relinquish it to _Robert again because he was
weary of hearing of his son's perfection in management. He would have
been back in his fastness long since only that Robert reigned there. Now
this!

To be in the saddle all day again, with a Nullah-Mundoey under, and the
dogs and Doogoolook capering fore and aft, with the eternal splendour
spread before him as a banquet on the table of the universe, generated a
spiritual exaltation beyond the miniature condenser of human
articulation.

They rested at noon to boil the quart-pot in surroundings aromatic and
primeval; they crossed the Murrumbidgee by Keebah punt at sundown and
reached the homestead at dusk. They were met by Donald at the stables.
There was no ready turning-out of horses. Donald compromised by putting
them in the stables, and was nervous as he went to the house. Danny was
unhappy to be approaching the hospital door with the possibility of
enmity meeting him. He halted at the garden gate.

"Go tell your father I'm here."

Urquhart was some time appearing. As Danny waited, his ire rose against
Robert.

"Good evening, Mr Delacy," said Urquhart, and did not extend his hand.

"Good evening, Sandy Urquhart. I never thought to see the day when you
would not shake hands. Sure, if wan of mine has done you wrong, I'm here
to face the facts, and prove or disprove them, and do all in me power to
make amends."

Urquhart led the way to the office where he kept his accounts. "Sit
down," he said, as if to a stranger, and left Delacy to open. "What is
this I hear, Sandy?"

"What have you heard?"

"That you have ordered me sons away with a gun."

"Your bairns were as welcome as my ain, till I foond disgraceful
proceedings in my ain hoose. I had to take steps to pluck my daughter
from ruin."

"Which of me sons was it, Sandy?"

"William I believe to be a decent mon, but that other one roust never
come near this hoose again."

"This is a dreadful business."

"How he came to be son of yours and your guid wife I dinna ken. No young
woman would be safe wi' him."

"I'll he honest with you, Sandy, as I would with black, whoite or green.
If Robert has left annything behind, he shall marry her, or I'll take the
gun to him meself. But I must be fair to him too, though he is my own
son. You may have heard of me forcing him to marry on the niece of
Hennessy, the publican. You never saw anything so plausible, and sure,
while I had the boy bailed up, by damn, if the girl did not exonerate him
by running oft with the son of old Bandy Macallister, the millionaire. It
made me pause, Sandy, when the next wan accused Robert; and that was
Fullwood witti his daughter..."

'That cattle duffer!"

"Have you his quality, too? Sure, I squashed that, and now the Fullwood
piece is trying to marry young Butler, and me not wanting the connection.
Moind, I don't say that Robert is guiltless, but the girls do throw
themselves before him. It's this dash with his spurs and all that swagger
that does it."

"It appears that Robert is beyond you. Some of the ugly tattle may have
been leasing, but Robert has a way of escaping. Could you lay your hand
on him now? Most likely he has another lassie all ready to marry in case
I should bring him to book. There are plenty better lads than that
swaggering birkie o' yours. It is my will that he shall come here no more
till he has a wife to keep him frae being a menace to other women."

Urquhart had never seen his old mate look so dashed, arid it went hard
with him, but Robert's offence had been deep. How ever, his cellarer
partly retrieved the occasion by extra rations. After a nobbler or two
Urquhart softened to call his visitor "Danny", and to tell him precisely
what damage Robert had wreaked. The old mates wept together as they grew
maudlin, and re-pledged the fealty of the Yackandandah, but Urquhart did
not relax towards Robert. He was too proud to expose his trouble to the
community, and preferred his own way of settling it. He said that his
friendship with Johanna and Danny stood, but when Danny sobered there was
a constraint upon the old open-heartedness.

Danny rode on to Burrabinga where he helped William and Harry to chase
wild bullocks from Bullock Gap. He thundered through the scrub down
impossible declivities, holding his wooden leg in his hand, as he had
done in his youth, and his mare never so much as stumbled under him. The
mind still held dominion over the flesh. He held his own against his
sons, but Robert had jarred his dream of opening up territory for
posterity. He had spoiled the human association so precious and so
sparsely rationed in the lonely pioneering days. Danny hardly knew what
to do. Robert was mature and had long since been promised partnership.

He spent a night with Wong Foo and was comforted that no moth
deteriorated the fabric of that friendship. He called upon Bella and was
cheered and amused by her jovial camaraderie. He had little against
Bella, She had eloped, and Danny had done that himself. It was not the
custom to visit a husband's lack of character on his wife unnecessarily.
Bella asked Mr Delacy to carry a letter and parcel to her mother and to
say nothing to James. The union remained morganatic: the Fullwoods had
not relaxed towards the Rafferty collection.

Danny returned to make his difficult report to Johanna, who was waiting
in a fury of nerves.

"And you, Daniel Delacy, not to see it's those Anguses making mischief
and putting the blame on me beautiful boy. That sour old fox-coloured
Presbyterian to talk of taking a gun; and that ignorant old trollop of a
Mrs Janet, the shape of two flour bags set wan upon the other--she'd do
annything out of hell or in it too--and that's where she should he for
such wickedness--anny thing to trap me beautiful boy. And ye with no
more circumspection than an eft in controversy with them. If ye had a
proper proide, Robert could have been married with wan of the Camerons of
The Plains by now."

"Nonsense, woman, there's no eligible Cameron above ten years old.

"And what did ye say whin he ordered Robert to keep his distance? If ye
had anny backbone, but ye wouldn't have; ye'd be crying around a kag of
rum, and taking ivery side but ye'r own, and blathering like the feis of
Tara, and nothing in it but wind."

"There's this, Johanna, you're over-excited now. That is all that can
excuse you for talking of Janet Urquhart, who took you in whin I lay with
me limb gone and me moind astray."

"I'm thinking it's still astray. And whoi were ye capering around an
impty continent, and laying on an ant bed till ye'r limb was ate off..."

"Och, woman, there's no sense at you at all." There was no appeal but
justice to Danny's impersonality and large magnanimity; and justice was
coldly repellent to the over-wrought mother.

"What has come to Robert, wandering the wilds alone? He might fall in
with the bushrangers and lose his life," she wailed.

"By damn! Urn thinking he would be at home with them. He can shoot and
strut and swagger about while honest men do the hard work."

"Me poor scandalised boy!"

"You're wrong in the evidence, me brave Johanna. We've weathered manny a
storm, and we'll weather this wan, but Robert cleared out when there was
no breath of scandal, so he must have had ray sons known to himself."

Della refused to be goaded into an opinion for or against Janet or
Robent. She had settled down to all the odd tasks as well as the major
management of Bewuck homestead. The stitches dropped by others were
picked up by her. Her mother was satisfied with this as progress towards
religious retreat. Della had put aside a number of things as ungodly,
among them the bustles, panniers and flounces of the 'seventies and
looked so skinny and unnatural that her brothers fount a trial to take
her to town. Johanna devoted henself to her garden and pot plants and the
dairy, which she superintended with Maeve and Hannon. She still delighted
in her turkeys and other poultry. Fur the remainder, she loved to gossip.
Not an item of news but pert filmed to her in the end if not sooner. A
frequent complaint was that Robert was not there to relieve her
imprisonment with his gig and tandem.

Danny, on the contrary, was no gossip. He condemned scandal. If any one
bnought him a foul story he would say, "If it is as bad as that, leave it
to Sergeant O'Gorman. It is beyond you, and the Sergeant is there for the
purpose of enforcing decency."

No sooner had Danny and Doogoolook dropped out of sight on their way home
than Harry took a pack-horse with provisions and camp gear and set off to
O'Neill to seek Robert. When O'Neill saw Harry's earnest spirit he said
he was sure that Robert was on the next occupied squattage, no more than
forty miles beyond Wild Horse Plain on the watershed between the
Murrumbidgee and the Snowy.

Here were the Lillingstons, in that generation somewhat taboo socially,
but who went in succeeding families to the top on Monaro, so that the
representatives of the name to-day swagger under as big a mortgage as any
other polo players and merino riders in the Mother State. Their hunting
ground in Daniel Delacy's day lay in the Crown Lands between Burrabinga
and their own holding, Bunbilliko. Tales were that they trapped every
hoof within reach, regardless of brand, and drove it by way of Jacob's
Ladder to Melbourne. Rumour may not have been excessive, as they rose to
be soundly rich in two generations.

Robert was heartily welcomed to Bunbilliko. Boots and breeches, spurs,
whips, plated gear, blood horses and rough riding had notorious exponents
in the Lillingstons. Delacy, Senior, had kept away from them,
disapproving of their lack of probity, but as he never slandered any one
he had not impressed this upon his sons.

There was a family of four sons and three daughters. The men were dashing
fellows and Robert was known to them for his ability with harness horses.
When he stated the reason of his visit they were ready to assist him.
They were unfailingly plausible and said that their own cleanskins were
running where Robert proposed to muster so they would make it a
partnership.

The open downs of Bunbilliko were suited to the training of harness
horses, so Robert put his business head to work and escaped the
bone-racking operations of sliding down precipices or buck-jumping. He
began by yoking horses to a log, and quickly had them fit for the spring
cart. The Lillingstons ordered a dogcart and soon they were all flashing
in and out of Cooma, but Robert remained excessively business-like. He
was uneasy concerning his absence and determined to reinstate himself by
a fine catch of horned cleanskins as well as horses.

Old Lillingston had done five years for horse-stealing on the northern
rivers, and his marriage was one of the variety common where the couples
went ahead and awaited the benefit of clergy when bishop or priest
visited remote places. He and Mrs Lillingston were delighted with young
Delacy's advent. Connection with a family so renowned for respectability
would lay the foundation stone of their social ascent, and they did
everything to woo Robert for one of the girls, but he was careful to show
no more favour to one than the other and to be as circumspect as if he
were married elsewhere and strictly monogamous. They were of the type of
Susan Angus, lively and able to take care of themselves, and to put
forward any side that suited. Robert was beginning to consider himself a
sultan to choose as he willed, and his maturing ambition was for a maiden
conventionally unspotted, clean as crystal, staunch as hemp.



CHAPTER XXVI


ROBERT wrote to his father a glowing account of the numbers of cattle and
horses he had reclaimed in partnership with the Lillingstons, and urged
the need to take advantage of a rising market.

Johanna was jubilant. "Me beautiful boy, what a head on him! And there
were those to disbelieve him and throw scandal on him!"

"It would be like him to take up with the fastest lot in creation. People
of questionable antecedents, and flasher even than Robert. Sure, I've
seen the Lillingstons in Queanbeyan, swaggering like dukes. Fellows with
small heads and long legs and smooth tongues."

While Robert's letter had been travelling to Bewuck, Harry had reached
Bunbilliko, and was effusively welcomed. He was like Robert in tall
willowy physique, soft black hair and chiselled features, but his eyes
were blue. He had no fine gear, and his small delicate hands were scarred
and calloused, with nails broken to the quick from the incredible miles
of fencing he had put up with them naked to sun, rain and frost. His
horses too were suitable for wild riding in impossible country, as
Robert's for showy appearance. Robert's were almost clean bred; Harry's
were brumbies, tireless and surefooted as goats.

Harry reported the Keebah commotion as he knew it. "Blinded old jackass!"
said Robert.

With a showy collection of oaths he placed the blame on other shoulders,
mainly George's. Harry was stirred to ride away to settle scores anew
with George, but Robert persuaded him to be quiet. "A decent man always
holds his tongue and stands the gaff if a woman is concerned," said
Robert nobly, lighting a pipe as large as his father's, and more
striking. To save a woman at his own expense was the swagger for
gentlemen in the printed romances that came Harry's way, and there was
zest for the spiritually hungry young man in living up to even a spurious
ideal.

Harry's eager selfless disposition made him a favourite with the
Lillingstons. The girls adopted him. He remembered them as sweet women
for ever, nor ever suffered any deterioration by the association, because
of Danny in him as well as freshly compounded depths of his own. Mike
Lillingston and he became bosom friends. It was Harry's first taste of
the delight of a mate who could match him in bushcraft and poetic
imagination.

Harry was enthralled by this country of tussocks and daisies, bluebells
and snow gums and little plains, where the Murrumbidgee begins as a
crystal and vocal sylph and roams about the forehead of Monaro gathering
volume and experience. In the numerous limestone caves within ride, the
young men found a world which they furnished with imaginary peoples and
cities. Fantastic metropolises buried beyond archaeological recall arose
at their bidding. Even the scrimshawing of the insects on the trunks of
the eucalypts was weft into fiction which held a younger generation
spell-bound when Mike's beard was grey. A few of their tales linger
half-remembered, but more have escaped to the faery of some outer circle
of time from people too engrossed in the arduous mechanics of pioneering
to keep a log of imaginings.

Horse buyers were due from Melbourne, so Robert decided to extend his
absence. With Harry, unexcelled buck-jump rider, to rack his frame,
Robert would prepare a draft of trained saddle as well as harness horses.
Harry was childishly proud of what Robert had accomplished, and he and
Mike were engaged day in day out. Their rewards were a girl's smile or a
word of commendation from a colleague. The companionship of girls, whose
kindness could relieve him of the painful shyness grown in solitude, was
a heaven of reward to Harry.

Also employed was old Peg-leg from the Gulph, a free selector, a
hang-over from Kiandra diggings, a lag who had lost his limb in trying to
escape from the sham-gang, and never denying it, nor excusing his
misdeeds. He had been a stable boy in England, and though old and
crippled was a mountain of help in training horses.

Robert's leadership was accepted by the Lillingstons, who never slackened
their flattery of him. He paced a filly for each of the girls and for the
old man, and for this they gave hint the best colt of the muster.

Harry got nothing but the chance to wreck his bones, but he had an
imagination to illuminate a province ere it was raped by the axe or knew
the desecration of sheep, the intrusion of roads, the confinement of
fences. Wide days of dazzling light, and nights massed with stars or
white with inebriating moonlight brewed the spirit of romance.

Two dealers came. Long Tom Bradford was known for his projecting teeth
and a glass eye, which was the wonder of his decade. It was not polite to
mention it, especially before the ladies, but Tom sometimes took it out
as a private treat for men and boys. His crony was Yorkie Driffield, a
short broad man with an outsized laugh, and they were as powerful a pair
of horse-copers as could be matched in South West Ireland.

A big week ensued. Robert and Rodney were masters of the Harness pairs;
Mike and Harry were jockeys. Robert presided at the bargaining and
whacking of the horses, and all concerned were satisfied with the
results. Long Tom and Yorkie perceived a bonanza. Trained horses "free
from vice" were in demand. They paid a wad of some hundreds and undertook
to bring the balance six months hence. Their word was their bond; they
had been trading throughout Monaro for years, and never a penny had they
diddled any man.


As a finale to the summer's business, Robert and Harry appeared at a ball
in Cooma with the Lillingstons. All Cooma and neighbourhood were in
attendance, some of the men in evening dress. Robert could not achieve
that at short notice. Harry looked on in a second-best suit of one of the
Lillingstons because his own clothes were worn out. He laughed until he
was exhausted, and behind the scenes made friends with Meg Syme, a tall
young woman of serious mood, who generously gave a hand where there were
gaps in the service. Her younger sisters and a brother disported
themselves in the dance, which was by public subscription.

Robert and Rodney found the ball dull, but would not leave without
supper. Robert went to the table in the tent in the back yard and began
to help himself and companion. This brought one of the junior stewards,
who happened to be Douglas Syme, brother of Meg. "Go away, you lout and
carry guts to a bear," said Rodney. "He's not fit to carry guts to a
bear," added Robert.

The chief panjandrum was fetched, old Major Rawson, whose station joined
the Lillingstons'. He was panoplied in full evening uniform and his
status as top sawyer of the district's swells. When the Lillingstons had
business near his homestead and appeared at meal times, Rawson offered
them a feed in the kitchen. This mistake had been repeated recently
during a call by Rodney and Robert to see about some colts. Rodney had
hoped that the presence of a Delacy would make a difference, but Rawson
discerned and resisted these tactics of a social climber.

"I'm sorry we've finished dinner, but the cook may be able to find
something for you," he had said.

Robert refused haughtily before the sentence was finished.

When Rawson was called in by young Syme, he was flustered to find Robert
and Rodney. He suspected the Lillingstons in the matter of his
cleanskins. As the Lillingstons knew, Rawson was an adept in popping a
brand on a Bunbilliko steer or colt himself, and was, through his
influence with the Commissioner, trying to squeeze out the Lillingstons.

"This won't do," he said to Rodney, who was slicing the breast of a
turkey cock, reared by Meg Syme, as it lay on a platter in its own
juices.

Rodney ignored this. Rawson said he would throw him out, and put his hand
on Rodney's collar. Robert thereupon seized the bird and wiped gravy and
grease down Major Rawson's white shirt front, thus relieving his envy of
the Major's sartorial superiority, as well as having revenge for the
intended social insult at their former meeting. "Sorry, my hand slipped,"
said Robert with assumed regret. "The cook very likely can find a
tea-towel or something in the kitchen."

All ears were strained, many with delight in the incident. Rawson had an
overbearing manner; all but his intimates had suffered from it. He felt
he was defeated for the moment. Meg Syme came to the rescue by pinning a
handkerchief across the irate bosom. To raise a froth on their swagger
the two worthies returned to the ball-room for one more dance before
departure. Robert's fancy was taken by a pretty little outsider, who
refused him because of the Rawson incident. "Go to hell," whispered
Robert, swaggering off to another girl, who, to his consternation, also
turned from him. "You insulted my brother!"

"Never intentionally would I insult the brother of such a pretty girl,"
said Robert grandly, "and if I insulted him accidentally I'd apologize."

"You ought to, if you are a gentleman."

Harry came to explain that the young man who had first tried to turn
Rodney from the supper table was Douglas Syme, brother of his new friend
Meg, who had cooked the turkey, and that the girl Robert had asked to
dance was Nessie Syme. Robert was not abashed. "If I apologize will you
dance with me?"

The girl agreed, confused and afraid of a commotion. "Bring your
brother," said Robert.

"Douglas wouldn't come," said Nessie.

"Then I must go to him. I was in the wrong," said Robert. Harry beamed on
his hero.

Robert strutted down the room. "You come with me," he said, tucking the
girl's arm under his, nolens volens.

"I've come to apologize," he said loudly. "I was wrong, Mr Syme. I said
you weren't fit to carry offal to a bear, but you are, you are!...And now
for our dance."

The dance past, Robert was confronted by young Syme with his hackle now
raised on two counts.

"You told my sister to go to hell," he said angrily, "And you can just
come outside until I take it out of your hide."

"Your sister?" said Robert, a little taken back.

"My other sister."

Robert caught sight of the third Syme girl at the far side of the room.
"I don't want to hit you, my lad, for my fault," he said to the youth.
"I'll apologize publicly and abjectly." His mordant wit was stimulated by
champagne, and he went across the room to Jeanie Syme with mock humility,
"Say, Miss Syme, I advised you to go to a warmer place than this freezing
hole, but your brother has seen me about it, and now you needn't go; you
are to dance with me instead." Before the shy girl could parry this she
too was being whirled around the dancing floor. All eyes were upon her
partner in the hope that he might further enliven the meeting, but he
prepared to leave at the end of the polka.

Harry reported from behind the scenes, "Ghost! Every one is pleased you
did that to old Rawson. He's always trying to show his authority. I'll
introduce you to the eldest Miss Syme. You'll have to be civil to her if
you want to do a line with Jeanie and Nessie."

Meg was distant and dignified and nearly as tall as Robert, but there was
a twinkle of amusement in her eyes. She had observed this celebrated
bachelor several times previously displaying hi horses around Cooma. She
inspired him to genuine apology. "You see, old Rawson tries to come the
nabob. Every one was so paralyse before him that perhaps I went a little
too far."

"Quite a long way too far," said Meg, but her eyes smiled.

Harry was excited that Robert had brought ridicule on the would-be baron
of the district. The following morning he show Robert the bundle of
goodies that Meg had given him for the road. Robert was so expanded by his
own triumphs of wit and adulation that he went to a celebrated saddler's
in the town to procure Harry a new saddle. He asked for pig-skin of a man
too full of his own conceit to appreciate the celebrity before him.

"We keep only hog-skin," said he in a corrective tone.

"What a pity; I wanted pig-skin."

"But," said the man, seeing a customer for an expensive saddle, "they are
the same article."

"Oh, no," said Robert. "You only had hog-skin when I asked for pig-skin,
so I'll go elsewhere." He strode away with a fine flourish of his heels
to show the fine length of his spurs.

The home-going was full of pleasure to Harry. A crisp April sunset
reddened the valley, the garnered hay paddocks and naked orchard were
grey under the nightly frost which already tingled in the air, and the
voice of the Murrumbidgee came loudly from the crossing as they descended
the cutting and were announced by the dogs. Robert's contingent rushed
forward, some to engage in plunder while others disputed with the home
pack. The hens were safely on their roost and Johanna free to run across
the cultivation paddock to meet the travellers. Danny followed as far as
the wood-heap, shouting orders about the dogs, and Della and Maeve came
out to the stables.

In the evening when Della settled to the mending and Maeve went to bed,
Robert brought out his gains and told of the partnership with the
Lillingstons. It was hard to tell who was the more moved during the
recital, Johanna or Harry.

"Can ye trust the dealers, me boy?" asked Johanna.

"They have a good name," interposed Danny. "You mean the long man with
the glass eye, and the broad man with the guffaw. Sure, the short
fellow's guffaw is heard all over Monaro."

But it was never heard there again. Never.

"In any case, see what we have and all because of Robert," eagerly
interposed Harry.

"A few clothes would improve you," said Johanna.

"He must have a new suit," said Robert. He did not press his own rights,
waiting for what Danny had up his sleeve about Janet Urquhart.

That came up next morning when they were inspecting the colts which
Robert had selected as saddle-horses.

"I never thought Urquhart would warn wan of mine off with a gun. Forty
years in the Colony and such a thing has never happened to me, yet
wherever you go there is trouble. What is your side of it?"

"Looks like the same old play to get a husband for his trollop of a
girl."

"The mention of you as a husband made him talk of a gun."

"Long Tom could see through that with his glass eye. Two guns wouldn't
run me into being a husband for any of them."

Danny was gagged by his oath of secrecy. "At anny rate you've ruined me
best friendship. If you don't want Grace; and Molly ran off from you; and
you speak like a low-down scut of Janet--wan of the finest young women
to be seen, who is fit to make a home and rear a family--in the name of
reason, who do you want? Have you taken up with a Lillingston?"

"I have no more thought of them than of Molly or Grace."

"I hope they have none of you. The safest thing would be to marry a
steady woman and cease to be a candidate for mischief with all the
faymales from Goulburn to Cooma--rags or silk."

"I'm in a fine position to marry, with never a penny of my own."

"I'll set you up if you choose the right woman."

Robert asked for a share in the cattle and horses reclaimed from
Bunbilliko, and Danny agreed to consider the question of partnership
with his sons, so often deferred. For the present Robert was allowed to
set off for the cattle, and to take Harry. Doogoolook was also
contributed to the expedition.

William was left to slog at Burrabinga with two stockmen through a long
snowy winter. Cut off from Keebah, his one social outlet, he grew more
shy and awkward. He would not go to Birrabee. He feared Susan as
dangerously attractive, and also he was too proud to go where he would
have to refer to his proscription by old Urquhart. Bella and Wong Foo
were his only relief in isolation.



CHAPTER XXVII


Robert and Harry came out of the cattle enterprise with profit sufficient
to advance Robert's prestige. Harry had none to bother any one. The
months ran away after that without any word from the horse boxers. Winter
lingered with snow and sleet throughout September and October. Robert
went through to Bunbilliko and took Harry with him. By the end of
November the new tussocks were strong and green, the plains aglow with
bluebells and daisies, other horses were finishing their education, but
Long Tom and Yorkie did not appear.

Rodney and Robert continued their career in Cooma. Robert had his eyes
open for Meg Syme, whose dignity had impressed him at the time of the
ball, He saw her one day in the leading store and asked her would she
Rive him a shakedown for the night as his horse was sulleting a stone
bruise. He winked warningly at Rodney. Meg naturally concerted,
hospitality being obligatory. Rodney was glad to flirt with Nessie and
Jeanie. Old Syme had a small place not far out of town and since the
death of his wife, Meg had kept house for him and the younger children.


Harry and Mike roamed the far recesses of their region, where only a
shadow people, who had neither despoiled beauty nor let any monuments,
intervened between creation and the young men's reign in an emptiness
awe-inspiring and splendid. Thousands of magpies showered mellow notes
into the aromatic silence; butcher birds practised their rich phrases;
the crashing mockery of jackasses echoed far and near; a feathered host
threw their smaller harmonies into the interstices of a spring orchestra,
with the alien rhythm of hoof-beats as its drums. Crystal water rifled
hill and plain. Flowers were everywhere--a carpet of blue and gold
underfoot, an arras on the lower scrub, a canopy overhead exuding honeyed
incense which the tempered winds swept pure and free from eternity to
eternity.

A human intrusion was the death in the ranges of a lone fossicker known
as Taffy. Rumour was that he left a hidden can of nuggets. Old Peg-leg,
mad to find the treasure, dug everywhere like a wombat.

Mike and Harry's intention of teasing Peg-leg by reporting the finding of
the nuggets was forestalled one day by the ferocity of the old man. His
wife, Brandy Mary, tottered to meet them, clothes awry, waving her arms
and weeping and shrieking that she must tell them something, but was
afraid that the old man would murder her. Peg-leg rushed front the hut
and dragged her inside by her matted locks. The boys, horrified, rode
away, leaving Peg-leg to exercise his marital authority. The vast
solitudes were often a jail where a conjugal prisoner had no redress from
a warder, brutal as any that operated in officialdom. The screams and
terror of many a tragedy evaporated into the palpitant and pregnant
silence.


The year drew to a close without news of the horse dealers. The three
Delacy men with Doogoolook and Wong homed to Bewuck for Christmas, while
O'Neill took charge of Burrabinga.

The women were full of bustle and importance preparing the old-world
feast in baking weather. The men were still able to enjoy the Bunyip
Hole. Honoria Butler came home for Christmas Day but took all her family
and guests to Old Glenties for the picnic races which the elder Butlers
always organized for Boxing Day. The Fullwoods appeared there in force
and Charles said good day to Delacy again. The Fullwoods had been the
greater losers by the long avoidance. Gerald, Della's one-time flame, was
now pursuing Grace, and Grace met Robert with equanimity.

During the dance in the evening Gerald and Grace decided to marry. Della
did not dance since she had turned religious. It devolved upon her to
find sleeping places, for the infants of the self-satisfied matrons--the
conventional role for one who was such an "oddity" that she had thrown
away her chances. She met with pale wit the crude humorosities about her
spinsterhood,-while her mother was secretly satisfied as to her final
disposal.

Danny at intervals broke into song, for which he was fitted with one of
the most resonant voices in the world and not a thread of ear. His
masterpiece was:


I'm Denny Blake from County Clare,
And ready at command,
To sing a song in praise
Of my own clear native land.
   etc. etc.

I love my native country,
I'm loyal to my Queen
But I can't forget old Ireland,
Where the grass grows green.


Old Butler, who had a true tenor, brought tears to the eyes of the elders
with:


I'm sitting on the stile, Mary, where we sat side by side,
On a bright May looming long ago, when first you were my bride.
The corn was springing fresh and green and the lark sang loud and high,
And the red was on your lip, Mary, and the lovelight in your eye.


Then he repeated an old favourite:


Those evening bells, those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells,
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time,
When last I heard their soothing chime!

And so 'twill be when I am gone;
That tuneful peal will still ring on,
While other bards shall walk these dells,
And sing your praise, sweet evening hells!


Danny called for the other song again and again. He bellowed it with
Butler, ruining the effect, but was so saturated with the sentiment that
he grew maudlin.

"Moi, oh, moi, but doesn't it fit like a glove, me brave Johanna?...'The
lark sang loud and high, and the red was on your lip, Mary, and the
lcvelight in your eye.'"

"Ye'r getting sintimintal in ye'r old days, which ye never were in ye'r
young," said Johanna. "A sign of childishness, I'm thinking. Ye've had
too manny taggeens. Get away before ye make a bigger fool of ye'rself.
Ye'll wake all the babies, roaring like the Bull of Cooley, and
destroying the chances of those who can sing without pulling the rafters
down."

Danny went without protest to a bed reserved for him by Della. "Moi, oh,
moi!" he murmured, as he unstrapped his stump. "I'm sitting on the stile,
Mary, where we sat side by side, on a bright May morning long ago, when
first you were my bride.' The moind! The moind! 'Tis all in the moind,
Johanna. In me moind I'm sitting there with you, as we did long ago in
old County Clare, and yet here we are on the Murrumbidgee."

Too active to dwell in the past or to realize he was getting on in years,
this song suddenly struck a deep chord in his being, and filled him with
wistfulness. He was startled to find that the glow of life, in which he
had walked as in dawn-light, had stealthily slipped behind him, and that
he had to look over his shoulder to behold it as he went on into the
night--a lonely shadow reflected against the afterglow.


The Delacy brothers were back at Burrabinga. January passed. Still no
tidings of the horse dealers.

"They've come and gone and the Lillingstons collared the swag, most
likely," said William.

Harry repudiated this on behalf of his friend Mike.


There was other news to flutter the Delacys. George Angus had married
Janet Urquhart. William heard it when he went to Birrabee for the post.
"George makes no secret of it. He grins from ear to ear like a dingo
scenting a calf."

Harry rushed in, "That proves that Robert never even looked at fat old
Janet."

Robert left Harry to do the talking for him while he threw his legs about
in transcendant swagger and went to yard his colt, presented by the
ingratiating Lillingstons. Smiles played across his features during the
afternoon. In the evening he announced that he was off to Bewuck in the
morning on business with the old man. Attended by his canine court, he
called at Birrabee and George accepted congratulations. Robert generously
offered Harry to cut shingles and adze posts for additions to the house.
He reached Keebah a few hours later. _He_ had never been ordered away, and
was bold in the knowledge of Urquhart's absence and Janet's marriage. He
entered and asked Mrs Urquhart, who had no skill in enmity, if he could
do anything for her in the Township and was affable while his champions
disabled a milder animal or two and killed a few hens. He refused the
invitation to spend the night in favour of riding on to Learmont's. He
would discipline Keebah by a little hauteur.

George Angus was whole-heartedly in love with Janet, and in the
determination to improve his social position by marriage into the
Urquhart family, had used the rumpus with Robert to further his suit. Old
Urquhart would be glad to dispose of Janet--blown upon by scandal--so
George had said that he had had Janet nearly won when Robert cut-in, and
believed he could make her care again. He had been permitted to write to
her.

Janet was overwhelmed by his ardour and the command of her father to
marry him. She was ill of homesickness in banishment as a blight upon the
prospects of her younger sisters. Robert was out of the picture. By
marrying George she could make amends and return to her circle. It seemed
a small price to pay. Whether her reinstatement made her as jubilant as
his exoneration rendered Robert, Janet was too lymphatic and unawakened
to know or show.


On arrival at Bewuck, Robert ill concealed his elation. When appetites
slackened towards second helping, Danny enquired,

"Have you anny news?"

"Only Janet Urquhart's wedding, but that is stale, I suppose?"

"Janet! Ye don't meant it! And who did she marry?" demanded Johanna.
"George, of course! Who else do you think would have her after their
carryings-on?"

It took the wind out of Danny's sails surely enough, and filled
Johanna's. "Just what I knew. There goes another scandalous plot of some
designing slut to capture me son."

"Is this wedding fact or rumour?" was Danny's question.

"Had it from George himself. They confirmed it at Keebah. Janet is
coming to Birrabee as soon as George has the house ready."

"Ye were at Keebah, and did they receive ye?" Johanna fluttered with
excitement.

"Fell over me, but I came on to Learmont's. They deserve a little of the
cold shoulder for what the old dingo tried to pull off with his talk of
guns. A man has no chance against a woman's lies but if you let 'em alone
they bowl themselves out. The old man had D.T.'s and saw snakes."

Danny felt that Sandy had somehow let him down, but Sandy's secret
remained and Danny kept it courageously against all provocation, kept it
so well that it came to Danny's grandchildren only from the last
remaining member of Danny's brood, when there was no longer any one
living for scandal to wound. George had cleared up the field for Robert,
whose triumph Danny had to suffer, a common ordeal to persons of
spiritual integrity when in conflict with those of less or none. Again
Robert by a fluke had emerged as a hero. Luck was his evidently, and a
fine business head, but he had not his father's respect. Neither had
Danny Robert's. He was inclined to dismiss his father as a silly old man.
The most trying result to Danny was Johanna's harping upon Urquhart
iniquity regarding her splendid son.

"Surely ye could see Urquhart was at his drinking! It shows how drink
takes the brain from a man entirely and leaves him like an impty kag with
an offensive smell."

Danny would have welcomed the peace of the "ind room" but for the marital
demotion involved.

The horse dealers never reappeared. Other men took their place. Horses
were saleable property. Robert and Harry went regularly to Bunbilliko.
The Burrabinga stock followed the river to its source in the austere
plains that exalt Monaro, a province with Kosciusko as its king, a king
not permanently crowned with snow, but garlanded each year with daisies.

The Lillingston girls abandoned hopes of Robert. Their brothers found
that Robert took them to Burrabinga but never to Bewuck. The connection
simmered down to the friendship between Harry and Mike. The reclaiming of
stock from that area was finally delegated to Harry. It was he who
brought the news that Brandy Mary had died drunk and that Peg-leg lived
on alone. He had given up work; a son who lived fifty miles away brought
him provisions. Gossip was that the son extracted heavy payment for
this, which Peg-leg produced from a hoard about the place. He threatened
to shoot intruders at sight and his temper was so evil that even the
clergyman gave him a wide berth.

"Poor old devil," observed Lillingston. "He's mad with loneliness. A
useful old cove with horses. He's got a mania against trespassers.
Transported for poaching and it takes him that way now."



CHAPTER XXVIII


Meg Syme tutored her younger sisters and brothers, made all the clothing
for the family, masculine and feminine, and was a splendid figure on a
horse. Some said he would be a lucky man who won her; but men made little
progress with her. She was too sedate, and only six years younger than
Robert, who was now thirty-seven. She had no glances or blushes for
Robert, who found her an enigma. At first he was regarded as Nessie's
conquest, but Nessie discovered that Meg was the attraction. This created
a sensation. Meg began to blossom. The neighbours said it was a shame
that Robert Delacy should make a fool of her, and tried to warn her with
gossip, but like Johanna, Meg was Robert's partisan for ever.

He measured Meg by his own instabilities and forays and felt that he had
what he desired, and that to her nothing but full dignities could be
suggested. He confided to his father that he wanted to marry.

"Have you chosen the girl or is it wan of them chasing you again?"

Robert said that he had chosen, and left his father to break the news. In
this case he knew Danny would be more of an ally than Johanna.

"Mother of God! Some streel has got hold of him again!"

Danny knew nothing of the Symes and bade her hold her whist until he made
inquiries. Della was overlooked. Norah was consulted, being married and
of the pure merino squattocracy. Her mother-in-law wrote to a friend near
Cooma, old Mrs Rawson. The reply came from Major Rawson of shirt-bosom
fame!


The Symes as far as I know, are respectable people, who derive from the
farmer class in the North of Ireland. I do not, however, know them
personally, and would not think of inviting them into my house on an
equality with my family.


"I knew," wailed Johanna.

"I don't want to be dragged down to people of that class," said Norah.

Della was silent.

"If she is an upstanding faymale and her people have good principles, I'd
as soon have her as the Queen's daughter. Robert is lucky to get such
after his miscarriages."

"It's a wife for me son, I'm considering, not a horse."

"There would be more sinse in considering a wife on the principles of a
noble horse, seeing what she is put to, raring children and dragging
about amid arduous conditions. Sure, 'tis not a canary bird to put in a
cage that Robert's needing. If you were choosing a horse would you pick
the weakest of the mob because it was a pretty little thing that would
fall down at all critical moments because of its refinement?"

"Ye have no more sinse at ye than the snipe in the bog at home in
Ireland."

"'Tis yourself that lacks the rayson.' Sure, when we consider a horse,
'tis breed that gives him stamina and makes him able to do more and do it
with a spring, while the common slug would rack your bones and wind
himself and not accomplish half the distance; and whoi should it be breed
in a woman, or a man, to be weak and helpless? There is food for thought
there."

"'Tis a wonder in picking ye'r own wife, ye did not choose wan of those
big bony fishwives from..."

"Arrah, me brave Johanna, 'tis the example of the polo pony we have; and
'tis the most striking in the whole boiling. 'Tis a polo pony you were,
me brave Johanna." He shouted this after her as she ran away to hide her
smiles. There were moments when her choice of Danny was justified.


I'm Denny Blake from County Clare,
  And ready at command,
To sing a song in praises
  Of my own dear native land.


he chanted in the resonant voice that was sometimes husky, perhaps
through constant smoking of stale twist.

He took a Nullah-Mundoey mare and packed his valise preparatory to
inspecting the Syme family.

Della suggested that Danny should go by gig and let her mother accompany
him.

"Me," snorted Johanna, "to be running about after her! She should bring
herself here for me to see, but if she did, I'd slap the door in her
face."

"What sense could there be in that? In moi moind there's a good chance of
her being too good for Robert."

He stayed one night at The Plains with Cameron. The next he quartered
himself at a shepherd's hut without interest in social gradations and
equally careless of the difference in quality of bed and food. The
sublime panorama spread before him as he journeyed by tracks all night
with flowers and birds, and quaint shy marsupials assured him of an
unending force harmonious and indestructible of which he was a part, and
he approached the Symes in a mind to estimate the proposed marriage on
its merits.

The Symes knew many anecdotes of Nullah-Mundoey, whose heroic
performances were already a legend d had earned him more titles than an
earl, in days when "jar!" meant strong man. He had started as Danny
Delacy of the Murrumbidgee and now was Nullah-Mundoey, Fearless Danny,
and Honest Delacy.

It was a shock to Meg Syme when a strange little man with a long straight
black beard, wearing sloppy clothes and a copataine hat--kept from
sliding over his eyes by a stuffing of gum leaves--boomed a flowery
greeting at her, and then broke into a guffaw. "Sure, you're as tall as
Robert himself--a pair of bean poles. You'd be good for spreading a hop
vine."

When Meg accepted his queerness, she liked him, he was so homely, so good
and wise, so free from acidity and malice. She read everything procurable
and was educated to enjoy the philosophic epigrams that poured from Mr
Delacy. He and Syme had fundamental congeniality in principle, but Syme
was the more thrifty and likely to die the richer, as Delacy recognized.

Danny's report was that Robert had done well for himself. Here was a fine
powerful woman old enough to have shown her quality. "She looks sound and
sensible, bur sure, a wife is only to be proved after hard trials and
constant companionship. But I never expected annything so promising of
common sense from Robert. Now if it had been William."

"Hasn't Robert always had more head on him than all the rest of the
family slapped together?"

Inconsistently with this, Johanna's back was up against what Danny
reported of Meg, and she insisted upon regarding her as a designing woman
who was sniggling the prize by sharp practice.

"Sure, I'll be thankful to the woman to take possession of him so I can
settle without expecting to hear of me best friend turned into an enemy,
or other members of the community coming at me because they think he has
meddled with their women. She's a brave woman, and good luck to her, I
say."

"But she is so old--over thirty."

"Och, isn't Robert an old rake himself?"

"But has she anny beauty?" Johanna demanded beauty in her daughter-in-law
as an elegancy due to her own refinement.

"I thought Robert had enough beauty for the family. Enough is better than
a feast, even of baits for the dingoes."

"I judge that she is plain as old Bally, but ye're a nullity when it
comes to judging all such things."

"Sure wasn't I a judge of beauty, or how could I have chosen the
prettiest girl in County Clare and got her to run over the seas with me?
'And the red was on your lip, Mary, and the lovelight in your eye!' Moi,
oh, moil e brave Johanna!"

"I'm reduced often to thinking it was an accident."

Danny smoked with loud smacks and pensive emissions of, "The moind! The
moind!"

Della questioned her father quietly, "Is she dark or fair; has she curly
hair or a long nose, and is she good-tempered?"

"Would she let me know her bad timper at this stage of the game? That has
to be risked. Wives can't be had on trial."

"But surely, Father, you can describe her features?"

"She has a nose in the middle of her face and a mouth below that, and an
eye on either side of it farther up. Her face must have been all right,
or I'd have noticed it."

"Sure, it was only by good luck I wasn't a two-headed monster," observed
Johanna.

The coming wedding called for a family conclave. The partnership of the
men Delacys, so long delayed, was at last to be put on a business
footing. Danny had Bewuck. Burrabinga homestead was to be improved for
Robert. William and Harry were to live there with Robert, or with Danny
at Bewuck, as the work demanded, until they should marry, when a home
each was to be erected for them out of the general budget. It was the
loose and generous arrangement of Danny, of whom Johanna said, "He has
too much scatteration on him and not enough grasping ever to make a
fortune, no matter how great the opportunity."

Neither Johanna nor Della was mentioned in the new understanding. The
work they had put into making both homes was not officially acknowledged
by so much as a new bonnet. Johanna was in a better position than Della.
The butter money was hers, except when Danny happened to be pushed for
cash, and remembered it; even then, if Johanna said she needed it, Danny
would not question her statement. There were also the turkeys. The
rearing of these fell to Della now, also the dairy and the care of Maeve,
who was frail, and needed help, and sat much in the chimney corner, and
when left to herself, crouched in the ashes.

Della had slipped into drudgery without any one being aware of it. She
was growing scraggy and her thin little hands were as rough as Harry's.
She dressed in drab winseys or something equally cheap and depressing,
was firmly embedded in spinsterhood, seldom mentioned, never discussed,
unnoticed by any one but her mother, who had designs upon her. Johanna
was hoarding every penny now towards Della's _dot_ as a _religieuse_. But
this Della did not know.

When she was left out of the new partnership she retired and sobbed
herself sick. Very little recognition would have saved her this hurt--a
small sum yearly to hoard against old age. She envisaged her end, and did
not like it. Even the gawky Grace Fullwood had married Della's old flame,
Gerald Butler, and was settled with home and children and good social
position.

A new home of slabs and shingles was pushed forward. All strove in the
cause of Robert. Danny came up to lay out gardens, and his friend Wong
Foo came in to help. These two with a stray rouse-about and the bullocks
went across the river and enclosed five acres of rich loam where it would
be safe from the poultry. The inconvenience of crossing the Burrabinga on
horseback bothered no one. There was a power of mares to be mounted. Some
old prad was always dozing at the back gate or in the stable awaiting a
chore; picked horses were in the horse paddock--forerunners of the
telegraphs and telephones. Everywhere were mares with foals at heel; none
escaped. Fecundity was prized in man and beast.

Wong brought vegetable seeds. Danny took his mares and packed flower
plants and shrubs from Birrabee. The gentle Janet met him with her usual
friendliness, unaware that her father had confided in his old mate.

Robert was glowing, his swagger moderated by affection for a good woman
and approaching responsibility. Harry was indefatigable and ecstatic.
William kept judicial watch. Danny was released in enterprise as he had
not been of late. Bewuck had not scope enough for him; he often looked
wistfully towards the mountains which he had opened up, but which Robert
was taking from him.

Danny was becoming a worn-out pioneer. Empires rise on the unrewarded
efforts of such indomitable individualists. Only a few of the many emerge
to the ken of recorders to give new lease to tales of daring and
fortitude. They pour out their strength and courage in taming new
territory. They are givers. They provide lashings and leavings of raw
material, or father the exploitable rank and file for the shrewder
investors--the takers.

Danny, the ineffectual old pioneer, was to have his reward--if any--in a
zest in life which did not stale until he was past seventy, and which
sheltered him from all the ghosts and devils that invade the pillow of
the complex and introspective. And he rarely had an ear-ache or
stomach-ache; when a tooth ached he prised it out with a pen-knife.
Rheumatism passed him without toll, indigestion was a stranger to him,
though his most constant food was a cut from a salt round enlivened by
mustard applied like treacle, a diet which had become a habit while he
bached. The fiends of physical torture, finding his courage invincible
under their first attack, were won henceforth to clemency.


Johanna refused to go to the wedding, and Danny would not go without her.
No one thought to invite Della, another unintentional slight, which
showed her her position. Norah Butler declined because she was not proud
of the match. Meg, therefore, tactfully decided that she would have only
her own family, and Will