Chapter XIV A Boating Holiday
“Dad!”
“Yes?” Tom Macleod paused in his task of staking peas, and looked inquiringly at his little son.
“It’s a lovely day,” Garth said, conversationally. “Isn’t it?”
“It is. Did you come out to tell me that?”
“Well, not exactly,” Garth hesitated. “Only, it is a nice day. And mother and I were thinking we hadn’t had any fish for ages. And we thought it wouldn’t be any wonder if the motor got indigestion again, through not being used!”
Macleod grinned.
“You and mother are a pair of old conspirators, and I am your unhappy victim!” he said. “This means, I suppose, that I am to stop earning both your livings and play about in a silly motor-boat all day!”
“You know it isn’t a silly boat—it’s a beauty!” Garth protested. “And it isn’t waste of time, ’cause we’ll catch such a lot of fish that it’ll save the butcher’s bill no end. And there’s meat-pies to take out for lunch: mother made ’em yesterday, and they’re lovely!”
“I never heard a more convincing set of reasons,” Tom said. “Well, if I don’t come I suppose you and mother will go off by your wild lones, and eat all the pies, so I suppose I’d better be meek. I say, though, what about bait?”
“’Possum and I caught a lovely lot of shrimps yesterday,” said his son demurely.
“Oh, did you? I’d like to know was it the sight of your shrimps that made mother make the pies, or the sight of the pies that sent you after shrimps?”
“It wasn’t neither, truly,” Garth answered. “She made ’em while I was away. She says it was a brain-wave!”
“I have noticed mother have that species of brain-wave before,” said Tom, staking vigorously. “Well, I’ll come; but I must finish this row first. Even to catch fish and eat pies I won’t leave my precious peas to trail in the dust. Peas are money, young Garth!”
“I’ll help you,” Garth said eagerly. “If I hand you stakes you’ll get on ever so quicker.”
“True for you,” said his father. They worked together until they came to the end of the row, and Tom stood up, glad to stretch his aching back.
“People with long cheap backs like mine ought never to be asked to double them up,” he remarked.
A grey horse and a flapping blue skirt came into view, mounting the hill towards the house.
“There’s ’Possum!” Garth-cried. “I wonder would she come with us? May I ask her, Dad?”
“Yes, of course,” Tom answered. Garth shot across to the garden gate, and he followed more slowly.
’Possum had lost all outward traces of her accident, except that she walked a little stiffly, and was not yet capable of any hard work. She did as much as possible in the saddle; but for the most part her father had suddenly put down his foot where work for her was concerned—the result of a conversation with Aileen—and the girl was experiencing a most unusual holiday. It almost troubled her: leisure had so little come her way. Now, her father performed all her rough tasks; and Bertha and young Bill gathered the fruit and vegetables, and prepared them for market, while Polly and little Joe tended the fowls, fed the broods of baby chickens, and gathered the eggs. As a kind of favour, ’Possum was permitted to market her produce—with Bill or Bertha as attendant, to jump in and out of the cart and carry the loads into the houses. ’Possum did not enjoy it. “I ain’t used to being a lady,” she said.
She fell back thankfully on the Macleods; and there were few days when she did not ride up to the cottage on the hill—to potter about the farm with Tom and Garth, and look at the crops and the stock, or to watch Aileen as she worked in the garden or in the house. Aileen was busy with a good deal of sewing in those days, most of which she was careful to conceal when she heard ’Possum’s step. One day ’Possum surprised her in the act of working at some pale pink print, and laid her hand gently on the stuff. “Your things is always so pretty,” she said wistfully. Whereat Aileen smiled, and remarked vaguely that pink was a good washing colour.
To-day ’Possum professed herself as very willing to join the fishing party: and they set off happily, laden with baskets and quart-pot, to the boat-shed, where Tom dealt mysteriously with the motor. The launch was only a tiny one, fitted up by Mr. Gordon for his fishing expeditions: five or six people filled it comfortably, and it drew so little water that it could be run into the shallowest of bays and creeks. Tom settled ’Possum and Aileen comfortably in the stern, and Garth took up his usual position, as far out of the bow as he could hang his small person with safety. Bran whined distressfully on the shore. Ordinary boating-trips were permitted him; but to bring leaping fish into the boat upset all his calmness, and sent him into such paroxysms of barking that when fishing was part of the programme he had been condemned to remain at home. Garth sorrowed over it, and talked severely to him on the subject of gaining more sense: orations which Bran heard with respect, but which had so far produced no effect.
“Orders, please, ma’am,” Tom said, looking up from the digestive apparatus of the little engine. “Where do you want to go?”
“I want to explore this arm of the lake,” Aileen replied promptly. “You know, we have never been up to the end, and we’ve always planned to do so. We might get some fishing in the pools, ’Possum says; and if we don’t, we could go down to the lake itself after lunch and fish in earnest. Does that meet with your worshipful approval?”
“Sounds very jolly,” Tom said. “All right, then, we’ll go exploring first. Ready?”
They slid away from the little jetty, and turned up the arm of the lake. It was like a river pushing itself in among the hills. Near its outlet it was wide, and on stormy days there was a choppy sea at its mouth; but as it wound its sinuous course inland it grew smooth and tranquil and even narrower, save that now and then at a sudden turn it broadened into a deep and quiet pool. Then it would wind away again, each time seeming the last, until at length it narrowed to nothing, and the blue water vanished in a tangle of driftwood and rubbish brought by the slow tide to the end of its tortuous journey.
They swung round bend after bend. Gum and wattle trees bordered the water: and sometimes they came to a little clearing, where a settler’s cottage stood, trim and neat in its setting of orchard and garden, with fowls pecking contentedly near the homestead fences, and perhaps barefooted children running about. One such clearing led to ’Possum’s home, though the trees hid the house; they passed the little jetty where lay the sailing boat which had so nearly cost two lives—little the worse apparently for its long immersion. Two fishermen had towed it in next day and righted it—empty of all spare gear, but without damage. ’Possum gave a little shudder as she looked at it.
“No more sailing for me just yet awhile!” she uttered. “I seem to have lost me taste for it!”
They went on and on, winding and twisting through the forest, which grew thicker and thicker. Often it seemed certain that they had come to the end, as they entered a pool with no apparent outlet; but, as they glided farther, the water opened before them in another bend, and yet another, and another. Deep fern gullies came down to the water’s edge, dark and beautiful, and full of the chiming of bell-birds: and sometimes they heard the quick swish and crack of the stockwhip bird. They landed in one gully, where ’Possum said she had twice seen lyre-birds: and by great good luck, and patiently sitting on a log for twenty minutes, they actually caught a glimpse of a pair of the queer, shy birds, dancing solemnly on a mound, uttering strange sounds.
“They’re copyin’—they’re just born mimics,” ’Possum whispered. “Listen—they’ve heard a sawmill somewhere!” And indeed the sounds were nothing but the harsh rip of a saw through timber. They changed in a moment to the yap of a dog: which so enchanted Garth that he fell bodily off the log, and the lyre-birds promptly disappeared.
“Well, you are a goat!” said Tom.
“I just am,” Garth admitted penitently: “I don’t know what made me overbalance. I’m sorry.”
“Well, you hadn’t much log to lie on,” Tom said, relenting as he looked at the tiny limb where the small boy had been perched. “Can’t be helped, at all events.”
“You had jolly good luck to see ’em at all,” ’Possum said. “I been about the Bush all me life, an’ I haven’t seen ’em half a dozen times. But that gully’s always a haunt for birds—nobody hardly ever goes there. Look—there’s a blue wren.”
“Oh!—the lovely thing!” Aileen breathed.
He was certainly a lovely thing—a proud little person of black and enamel-blue, with a blue cap and a deep-blue tail nearly as long as his whole body. He was very busy, strutting happily about the ground or fluttering from twig to twig with a rapid flight that made him look like a glancing jewel. Finally he perched on a bough and broke into a little song as exquisite as himself: and then dashed off in a great hurry to find his mate.
“What a jolly little chap!” Garth uttered.
“He’s a dear, ain’t he?” ’Possum said. “An’ his little mate’s as plain as he’s pretty, but she’s a dear, too. Look—there’s a couple of honey-eaters!” She pointed out a pair of dainty black and yellow birds, hanging head downwards under a patch of eucalyptus blossom. They had long, curved, slender beaks, in and out of which darted busy tongues ending in little brushes that swept the honey from the flowers.
“But they’re exquisite!” Aileen uttered. “I didn’t know we had anything so lovely.”
“There’s dozens of different sorts of honey-eaters, an’ they’re all lovely,” ’Possum said. “Some day we’ll go out, will we, Missus, an’ spend a whole day watchin’ birds?”
“I would love to,” Aileen said.
“Bert came home from school once, an’ said they’d been reading a bit o’ poitry by some bloke that said Australian birds hadn’t any songs,” ’Possum said, with disgust. “Well, I s’pose a bloke has to be clever to write poitry, but I don’t reckon he knew much about Australia. I wouldn’t ask anything better than our own of magpie singin’ in the early morning, or the thrush, or that little blue wren, or any of the warblers—an’ there’s dozens an’ dozens of others.. Even the ol’ butcher-bird can sing a fair treat. I reckon he was a silly bloke, don’t you?”
Aileen ventured a mild defence of the poet.
“I don’t think he meant that we have no songbirds,” she said. “I think he only tried to say that some of our handsomest birds were songless.”
’Possum tilted her nose.
“Well, people that make up poitry have a right to be careful,” she said severely. “Kids in schools pay an awful lot of attention to what they say, an’ it’s up to them not to lead ’em wrong!” After which Aileen defended no more.
They went back to the boat, and journeyed on, presently coming on a new sight for the Macleods. A blacks’ camp stood on a natural clearing near a creek that ran down into the lake-arm: a rough “wurley,” built of interlaced boughs, with a bit of sacking hanging down for a door. Hot as the day was, a little fire smouldered between two big stones. The only person visible, at first, was a tiny black baby, tumbling about on the ground without a rag of clothing; but as Tom stopped the engine, the sacking over the door was lifted, and a man and a woman came out. They were young, and the woman was not bad-looking, and her dress was fairly neat; but the man was an evil-looking creature, ragged and slouching, with a furtive, unpleasant gaze.
The woman picked up the baby, and they came down to the water’s edge, looking curiously at the boat and its occupants. The man held out a rough boomerang he was making, and offered it for sale.
“I’ve no money with me,” Tom said. “Would you like it, Garth? I can tell him to come to the house to be paid, if you would.”
“Don’t you!” said ’Possum, in a quick whisper. “It ain’t worth buyin’—those fellers don’t know how to make a decent boomerang. They’re on’y sham things, made to catch silly visitors——” She pulled herself up, and turned scarlet. Tom laughed.
“Bless you, ’Possum, I always get truth from you,” he said. He shook his head at the man. “No, thanks,” he said; and the black fellow looked surlier than ever. The woman uttered a quick jabber of words that included something about “bacca.”
“Oh, they can have that,” Tom said. He took a piece of tobacco from his pocket and tossed it to the man, who caught it deftly, his heavy face lightening for a moment. Then the boat chugged her way onward, and they lost sight of the little clearing.
“’Fraid I was a bit rude that time,” said ’Possum. “But if you once let one of those fellers come to your house, you’re never free of them. They’ll turn up at any hour and want tucker and baccy; an’ what’s more, they’ll tell their friends, and you’ll have them callin’ too. And they’d steal the very clothes off your back. Nothin’s safe from them—the washin’ out on the line, an’ the chickens, an’ the things in the shed. They’re a caution when they take to hangin’ round a place.”
“But won’t they come in any case?” asked Aileen.
“Oh, they may, of course. But they’re queer people; if once they’re told to call at a place they seem to think they’ve got a hold on it for keeps, an’ they’ll come back for years an’ years.”
“Where do they live, ’Possum?”
“Those people have most likely been in one of the settlements—Ramahyuck or Lake Tyers. The woman’s dress looks like it: she’d never be as neat as that if she hadn’t been in a mission station. They treat ’em jolly well there—give ’em decent little cottages to live in, an’ just enough work to keep ’em going. But they always break out now an’ then, an’ one or two’ll clear out to the Bush an’ camp for a while. They’ll go back when the cold weather comes—or before that, if they aren’t pickin’ up enough food. An’ they don’t much mind where an’ how they pick it up, I can tell you.”
“Why wouldn’t you let Dad buy the boomerang, ‘Poss?” asked Garth.
“I’d make you a better one meself,” ’Possum answered. “It’s really only the old men who know much about either makin’ or throwin’ boomerangs: none of these young ones’ll bother themselves. You could throw that affair he was makin’ into the air, same as you could any old stick, but it wouldn’t return to you. Most people don’t know the difference”—she grinned at Tom shamefacedly—“an’ they get a sale for all sorts of rubbishy stuff among the summer visitors. But it’s no more real black’s stuff than I am. That gets harder to buy every year, because the old men who used to make the things are dying out.”
They had been gliding along gently, the water growing steadily shallower. Suddenly, they came upon the end of the arm—a pool like hundreds of other pools through which they had passed, save that in each of the others there had been an outlet, and here there was none. The water ended. All round them the trees frowned down upon the still surface, where leaves and sticks floated idly, never to get away: doomed to wash into the rubbish along the shore, or to become water-logged, and finally to sink to the muddy bottom. There was something unnaturally eerie and still about the place. Even the birds had deserted it: there was no longer the happy sound of their singing and twittering. Far overhead a fish-hawk sailed lazily.
“Ugh!” said Aileen, shivering a little. “I don’t like this place. Let us turn back.”
So they turned and drifted into wholesome blue water, passing the blacks’ little camp and the gullies and clearings that led back to the country they knew. In one gully they moored the boat and made their fire, eating their luncheon among the limbs of a fine old tree that had fallen and lay upon its side, its gnarled-boughs making splendid natural arm-chairs. The birds were very tame: one little brown honey-eater came hopping near them for crumbs, and finally perched on the toe of Tom’s boot, where it remained in a quaint attitude of alert attention. Then they fished the pools, with varying success, and at last gave it up and travelled swiftly down the arm until they reached the lake itself. For the last half-mile there was little need for the engine. The current had been steadily growing in power; at length it whisked them round bend after band, until it brought them out into the open water, and set swiftly towards the Entrance, where the great grey piers guarded the lane of water that led out to the breakers.
“You wouldn’t have much chance if you drifted out here without oars,” ’Possum remarked. “The current joins the one that sweeps down the lakes from ever so far up, an’ don’t they just race out to sea! There was a party of girls in a boat—visitors—got into that current last year, an’ went bobbin’ along towards the Entrance. They’d been told it was risky, so they lost their heads an’ dropped an oar, an’ then, of course, they had no chance at all.”
“Were they taken out?” Aileen asked.
“No, but it was luck they weren’t. They were mighty close to the Entrance when some people in a motor-boat saw ’em an’ chased ’em—just managed to stop ’em in time. They’d have been in the surf in three minutes, an’ no boat could live there unless it was jolly well handled. You’ll see the fishing-boats comin’ in sometimes, when they’ve been out with the nets after a shoal of salmon, and it just is exciting! Even with four good men pullin’, it’s risky enough to bring a big boat through those breakers. Dad seen one turned clean over one day, an’ one man was caught underneath it an’ killed. An’ that was a great big sea-goin’ fishin’-boat, not the sort of little cockle-shell thing that people pull round on the lakes.”
“Poor chap! I did not know that the fishermen went outside the entrance: I thought they only fished in the lakes,” Tom remarked.
“They fish wherever they can earn a livin’,” said ’Possum drily.
They came out upon the wide surface of the lake, and ran across to a bay that nearly always held fish. To-day it lived up to its reputation, and soon they were hauling out whiting and big pink schnapper, whose sides were like live opal as they came out of the water. Tom fished scientifically, with a rod that was the pride of his heart: the others bobbed cheerfully with hand lines and sinkers, and were filled with joy because their results were as good. Their basket was full when they turned homewards in the evening.
“Tell about the time when Joe got bushed, ’Possum,” Garth pleaded.
“That ain’t anything to tell about,” said ’Possum reprovingly. “And besides, you know already.”
“Yes, but I like to hear it again,” Garth begged.
“We haven’t heard, at all events,” Tom said. “Go on, ’Possum.”
“Well, it’s nothin’ much,” ’Possum said, reluctantly: to tell Garth stories was one thing, but it was quite another to be forced to retail them to Garth’s parents. “Joe went off on his own into the Bush one afternoon—on’y four, he was—an’ next thing I knew was, it was near dark, an’ no Joe. Dad was out in the boat that night, so I left word for him, an’ put all the other kids to bed an’ made the fire safe, an’ started off.”
“Into the Bush?”
“Yes, of course. That’s where Joe was. Well, I pounded through the jolly old scrub all night—no luck, an’ I was pretty worried, ’cause Joe wasn’t no more’n four. An’ all me clothes got tore, an’ I was scratched near to bits, an’ I kept thinkin’, if that was all the fun I was gettin’ out of it, an’ me past fourteen, how about poor old Joe?”
“But you found him, ’Possum?” Garth cried eagerly.
“Just about daybreak, I did—in an old hollow stump. Crawled in, he had, an’ there he was, lyin’ asleep, happy as Larry. Not any trouble for Joe. He woke up, an’ I was the first thing he saw, an’ he laughed all over his dear old dirty face. ‘Where’s me porridge, ‘Poss?’ he says. He always was just about the limit!”
“What about your father?” Aileen asked.
“Oh, he got home about two o’clock, an’ seen the note I left, but he reckoned if I couldn’t find Joe he couldn’t, so he turned in. Dad never worries about things. He says everything’ll come out in the wash, if you leave it long enough.”
They reached the jetty, and ran gently alongside. ’Possum hopped out nimbly, in spite of her sore feet, and helped to steady the boat while Aileen followed more carefully with the fish and the empty luncheon baskets. They left Tom to put the engine to bed, aided by Garth, and went slowly up the hill.
“Christmas will be in three days,” Aileen said.
“I suppose so,” ’Possum answered. “It don’t make much difference to us. I’ll have to kill a turkey for the kids’ dinner, I suppose.” She paused at the gate. “I won’t come in, Missus: it’s late, an’ I better be gettin’ home.”
“You must take some fish,” said Aileen, quickly halving the catch and placing ’Possum’s share in an old sugar-bag. “No, that’s not too much at all: there are more of you to eat it. And you know Polly loves fish!” They exchanged a fishy hand-grip. “Oh, and, ’Possum, come over to see us on Christmas afternoon, won’t you?”
“Seems to me I come most days,” said ’Possum, laughing.
“But we want you on Christmas Day. Will you come?”
“Why, yes, I’ll come—thanks,” said the girl, laughing. “Catch me stayin’ away, when you’ll be bothered with me. Well, so long!” She limped off to where her old horse slept peacefully under the quince tree.