Outlaw and Lawmaker/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
ON THE RACE-COURSE.
The head station at Tunimba was astir betimes, and long before the big bell clanged for breakfast, preparations on the race-course had begun and flags marked the line of running, and waved on the top of an extemporized Grand Stand. Frank Hal let t was waiting in the verandah when Lady Horace and Elsie came out. They were in their habits, like most of the other ladies, since nearly everybody was to ride to the course.
"I thought you might like me to show you your places at the breakfast table," he said. "Most have gone in. There are a quantity of people here already, and more coming from everywhere."
Breakfast was not in the dining-room to-day, but in the old woolshed—a large slab bark building, about a hundred yards beyond the courtyard, which was always utilized on these occasions, and in which they were to dance in the evening. Tunimba had once been a sheep-station, in the days before the Halletts had bought it, but sheep did not do well on the Luya. On an Australian station an a "old woolshed" is an institution, and the homestead which possesses one is usually the centre for the festivities of the district.
It was a queer picturesque place, with its dark walls, and beamed and raftered ceiling, and it had been decorated with creepers from the scrub, and now looked very gay indeed, filled with a chattering crowd—bushmen in immaculate moleskins and flaring ties, and with a generally brown, healthy, and excited appearance' ladies in habits, some of home manufacture, others the product of Leichardt's Town tailors, so that there were all varieties from the honest brown and grey wincey to the Park turn-out with high hat and boots. The girls were, many of them, very coquettishly got up, and stephanotis was in favour for a breast-knot.
Outside, a good many men were lounging about discussing the merits of their horses, settling matters with their jockeys, and taking notes of the new competitors. There was a good deal of interest in the Baròlin horses. The breed was getting a name, and Trant, to use a colonialism, was "blowing" loudly about his chances of taking the Luya Cup, and cutting out Frank Hallett, who had won it the previous year, with his thorough-bred Gipsy Girl.
Mr. Blake came up and shook hands with Lady Horace and her sister.
"I have been waiting for you," he said to Elsie, as they fell back a little—"because I want to sit next you, if I may, and also because I want to ask you if you will ride a horse of mine, which is a perfect ladies' hack, on the course today. I heard you telling Lord Horace last night that you didn't like the one you rode from the Dell."
"Thank you," said Elsie. "I should like to ride your horse. But Mr. Frank Hallett has offered me one. I am the luckiest young woman in the world. Everybody has offered me horses."
"Then your only difficulty will be in selecting," said Blake.
"I like riding new horses," said Elsie.
"Then," said Frank Hallett, a little stiffly, but feeling that he was magnanimous, and that he could afford to be so, "you will perhaps be wise to accept Mr. Blake's offer. If it is the horse he rode yesterday you will be much better mounted than on mine.
He turned again to Lady Horace.
"Mr. Hallett is very generous," said Blake.
"Is it Osman?" said Elsie, ignoring the remark. "The horse that nearly knocked you against a tree that day at the Crossing."
He gave a little start. "No. I wouldn't put you on that horse."
"I shouldn't be at all afraid of him. I never saw such a beauty. Perhaps you will be astonished to hear, Mr. Blake, considering I am a town girl, that I don't mind what I sit, short of a regular buckjumper. I can even manage a little mild pig-jumping."
He laughed. "This horse won't even pig-jump. And I am not surprised at hearing of your being able to do anything—that is courageous and interesting."
"Thank you. But the last clause was such an evident afterthought that I don't know whether to take that speech as a compliment or not. And you know you weren't to pay me compliments. Mr. Blake, can you imagine what is the one passionate desire of my life—at present?"
"Please tell me?"
"To have a gallop on Moonlight's Abatos."
"It is possible that you may attain even that summit of bliss, if, as you once suggested, Moonlight were to carry you off."
Elsie laughed, "Moonlight isn't in the least likely to show himself in the district while Captain Macpherson and his men are hanging round. Did you know that he was to be here to-day?"
"Who—Moonlight? asked Mr. Dominic Trant, who had joined them.
"Good morning, Mr. Trant," said Elsie turning. "No, not Moonlight; but Captain Macpherson. What an odd expression you have got on your face! What are you thinking of?" Trant burst into a laugh.
"I was thinking, Miss Valliant, what a curious dramatic sort of thing it would be if Moonlight and Captain Macpherson were to meet here as fellow guests. It's not impossible, you know."
"It strikes me as most improbable," said Elsie with gravity. She thought Trant's laugh rather familiar, and certainly ill-timed. "At least I hope so, for Moonlight's sake. I always confess to a strong admiration for Moonlight—and I hope so for Mr. Hallett's sake too. This is not a public race-course. The people here are his friends."
Trant laughed again in a sort of sotto-voce manner. Blake was evidently thinking of something else. His brows were knit, and his eyes gleamed darkly from beneath them. They went up the wooden slope to the woolshed, and Hallett showed Elsie and Lady Horace their places. He put himself on one side of Elsie. Blake took the seat on the other. He had lingered to say a word or two to Trant.
"Are you going to run Osman for the cup?" Elsie asked.
"I am not sure. He is entered, but I believe Trant has withdrawn him. Tell me who is that opposite—the man with the sprouting beard, who looks like a jockey?"
Before Elsie could reply the question was answered by a young Irishman from a station over the border—Mick Mahoney he was named—who called across.
"And is it after the Scriptures that ye are taking a pattern, Captain Macpherson, and are ye making a vow not to cut your beard till Moonlight's brought to justice? I'm thinking that at this rate ye'll have it to your waist."
"Come, I've had enough of chaffing about Moonlight," answered Captain Macpherson, good-humouredly, "and you might let a chap enjoy his day off once in a way. I've scoured the Luya from top to bottom, not a trace of him have I found."
"And been in some pretty queer places, I'll be bound," remarked an elderly squatter. "It's an awful rough country in the Upper Luya."
"Captain Macpherson," put in Elsie Valliant, "did you go to the Baròlin Fall?"
"As near as we could get, Miss Valliant, and I wish I might catch Moonlight making for that blind alley. But he is too cute, and knows the country far too well."
"It's a cul-de-sac, is it?" asked Mr. Blake, bending forward, and courteously addressing the police officer. "I believe you have been at Baròlin Gorge, Captain Macpherson, and know my partner, Dominic Trant."
"Oh, to be sure. Mr. Blake, is it? Allow me to congratulate you on your victory—saving your presence. Mr. Frank Hallett, but I'm not altogether at one with the squatterarchy, as you know. I'm half a Liberal in Australia—was an out-and-out one in England, which comes to the same thing."
Captain Macpherson laughed in his breezy way. When not in harness he was a rather happy-go-lucky person, though he was grim and daring enough on the trail. "Your partner, he's down there, isn't he?" and Captain Macpherson nodded cheerily to Trant, "How de do? Yes, he was most obliging, was Mr. Trant. Showed us all about, and gave my men fresh horses; put us on a wrong scent, too, with the best intentions in the world. That was a most harmless and respectable horse-breaker, Trant, that we followed like grim death across the border."
"So I heard afterwards," said Mr. Trant, imperturbably. "But he sounded uncommonly like Moonlight."
"Tell me about the Baròlin Fall," said Elsie.
"It is worth seeing, I can tell you, Miss Valliant, but you have to work your way through a bunya scrub to get to it. And there's a funny thing. None of the black trackers will go near the place. You'd have thought a year or two in the Native Police would have cured their superstition, but my theory is that the Australian nigger is only beaten by the West Indian for sheer terror of what he thinks is the supernatural."
"No one seems to know where the fall comes from," said Hallett. "They say that it's the lake on the top of Mount Luya, which was once the crater of an extinct volcano, and has worked underground to the precipice."
"'Tis a big body of water," said Captain Macpherson. "You were asking if the place is a cul-de-sac. You might have nicked a bit out of the mountain for all the outlet there is. It's a sheer precipice on each side of you, with a waterfall at the end of it."
"I want to go there," said Elsie. "Mr. Hallett, remember that you have promised to get up a picnic, and that we are to camp out for a night."
"You must wait a bit then," said Captain Macpherson. "There'd be no use in ladies trying it after the rainy season. We got bogged the other day. I'd put it off till the spring, Miss Valliant."
"Is it a promise?—in the spring?" asked Elsie, turning with a bewitching smile to Frank. "Come, I don't often ask you anything."
"Certainly, it is a promise," he answered.
"I shall keep you to it. And you, Mr. Blake, you are to be one of the party."
"I was going to suggest that you should make the expedition from our place," said Blake. "It is quite ten miles nearer, and if we are rough, Miss Valliant, we are at least picturesque."
"When is it spring?" said Elsie, with pretty imperiousness, turning to Hallett. "Please soon make it spring."
"I am afraid it can't be managed before the end of August," said Hallett, "and even then it would be cold for camping out."
"The end of August then," said Elsie. "That is settled. I look to you to square Mrs. Jem. The end of August!" she repeated. "Who knows what may have happened before then?"
Mrs. Jem had got up from the table. The men were anxious to be at the course. Outside the woolshed black boys in clean shirts and with new scarlet handkerchiefs round their waists were leading horses in side-saddles up and down. The gins and pickaninnies had come from the blacks' camp to see the start. They made impish noises and screamed out admiring remarks as the mounting went on.
"My word, Budgery that fellow!" was the exclamation that followed Elsie.
"I say, Elsie," cried a toothless, blear-eyed creature, plentifully tattooed, with a yellow bandana binding her woolly locks and an old pink tea-gown of Mrs. Jem's slung across her shoulder, "What for you got him new Benjamin? Mine think it Frank cobbon coola[1] along of you."
"Is that true?" said Blake. "Is Mr. Frank Hallett very angry with you? Does he mind your riding my horse?"
"No, why should he?" she answered.
"I should mind very much if you rode his horse after having promised to ride mine."
"Is this my horse?" she asked, pointing to a beautiful bay, which was held not by a black boy, but by a rather flash looking stockman—a rakish young Australian, with a fair moustache, twisted on each side to a fine point, and odd down-looking eyes. He was a fine upstanding fellow, lean and muscular, and had the gait of a man born or bred on horseback. It was said on the Luya that there had never been foaled the animal that Sam Shehan couldn't ride. He had been well known in the district from a boy, and was supposed to have done a little cattle-duffing, as it is called, in his younger days, but he had reformed entirely since taking a place with Trant and Blake of Baròlin Gorge, and was such a good hand with stock that the neighbouring squatters were always glad to get him over for a day or two at mustering times.
"Yes, this is the Outlaw," said Blake. "How is she this morning, Shehan?"
"Quiet as a lamb," said Shehan, "and fresh as a daisy, Miss. He's a bit of a speeler. He'd lick the lot of 'em if he was put into training."
Elsie put her foot into Blake's hand, and he lifted her into the saddle. Hallett was watching him jealously. Lord Horace had given Hallett charge of Ina. He himself was careering about the course, and had made a rather heavy book upon the races.
Behind Sam Shehan were two other Baròlin hands—twin half-caste boys, who had come in Shehan's train to Baròlin, and who had also turned into reformed characters under Trant's tutelage. Pompo and Jack Nutty used to have the reputation of being up to any kind of devilment, in the old days, and they, too, were magnificent horsemen, and invaluable at Luya musterings, because they knew every inch of the country.
Blake mounted his own horse, which was a fiery creature, but not the black one he had been riding on the day he first met Elsie. Baròlin was famous for its horses, and Dominic Trant was no less well mounted. He had a scowling expression on his dark face as he passed Elsie and his partner, but he made no attempt to join them. Elsie was the object of attention to a bevy of young men, but it was a tribute to Blake's power that no one thought of interfering with him.
In an Australian March, one may sometimes have a delightful day, with just a fresh faint foretaste of winter in the air. Sometimes, on the other hand, an Australian March is as muggy and disagreeable a month as can well be imagined. To-day it was bright and clear. There had been a heavy rain a few days previously, and the world looked as if it had been well washed. Never was sky bluer. There was a faint breeze stirring the tops of the gum-trees, and throwing a ripple on to the surface of the lagoon. The grass—where it had not been trodden down by the racers exercising—was thick and lush, and brown with its autumn heads. But the yellowing quinces and swelling oranges and the great pumpkins and squashes were the only sign of autumn. As they rode down by the garden fence, the enclosure was spring-like in its bloom. The prickly pears were growing faintly pink, it is true, and the passion-creeper hung out purple eggs, but the roses massed in quantities—golden Maréchal Neils and pale tea-roses, flaunting cabbage-roses, and dark delicate cottage beauties—a most sweet and gorgeous array. And there was a plant of the Taverna Montana in bloom, its dazzling white flowers nearly as large as a camellia. And the honey-suckle and stephanotis scented the air, and the great vermilion pomegranates were like blobs of sealing wax thrown at haphazard upon the green.
It was a day to intoxicate the senses.
"Who says that the Australian birds have no song?" said Elsie. "There's a magpie gurgling away as if he meant to sing at a concert to-night."
Blake smiled at her, and she smiled back in return. She had forgotten Jensen. She had forgotten her half promise to Frank Hallett. She had forgotten to ask herself whether or not she could ever love him. She only knew that she was happy, and that the air was sweet, and that Blake looked at her in a way in which no one else had ever looked. There was a grassy track—once the path for water carts in primitive days, before the erection of the grand pump.
The Outlaw bounded forward.
"Oh, let us have one canter along here," Elsie cried. "I want to try the Outlaw. One canter by the creek. Come, Mr. Blake."
She rode on, shaking the reins, and patting the animal's sleek neck, as he danced and curvetted. She looked back at Blake, and laughed like a child. How beautiful she was, and how splendid she rode! They rode on away from the crowd, cantering, almost galloping, always fast, fast, clearing the little logs and gullies in the way, all along the home paddock and never pulling up till they were at least two miles from the station.
"What will they think?" she said, reining the Outlaw. "Oh, what a glorious spin! Tell me, aren't you happy when you are going fast like that?"
"Do you call that fast?" he said. "Ah, you should know what it is to ride for one's life."
"Have you ever ridden for your life?" she asked, suddenly becoming serious.
"Yes," he answered, "and I have enjoyed it as I have never enjoyed anything in the world. Oh, to feel that your life—your very life—all the glory and beauty of this glorious and beautiful world—all the past, and the present, and the future—ambition, hope, a Cause perhaps—all depending on the speed of an animal and lying in the mad rush forwards! There's a wild sense of irresponsibility about a moment like that which I can't describe—can't give you the feeblest idea of. Your will seems to have got outside you, and to be in the night, and the trees, and the free birds and beasts. Every nerve is strung to an excitement which is rapture. It's the very essence of the joy of life."
- ↑ Cobbon colla—very angry.