An Outback Marriage, Banjo Paterson [top ten books of all time .TXT] 📗

of womankind is another woman’s wardrobe, and the Australian girl found something to marvel at in the quality of the visitor’s apparel. Dainty shoes, tailor-made jackets, fashionable short riding-habits, mannish-looking riding-boots, silk undergarments, beautiful jewellery, all were taken out of their packages and duly admired. As each successive treasure was produced, Ellen Harriott’s eyes grew rounder with astonishment; and when, out of a travelling bag, there appeared a complete dressing-table outfit of silverware⁠—silver-backed hairbrushes, silver manicure set, silver handglass, and so forth⁠—she drew a long breath of wonder and admiration.

It was her first sight of the vanities of the world, the things that she had only dreamed of. The outfit was not anything extraordinary from an English point of view, but to the bush-bred girl it was a revelation.

“What beautiful things!” she said. “Now, when you go visiting to a country-house in England, do you always take things like these, all these riding-boots and things?”

“Oh, yes. You wouldn’t ride without them.”

“And do you take a maid to look after them?”

“Well, you must have a maid.”

“And when you travel on the Continent, do you take a maid?”

“I always took one.”

“What is Paris like? Isn’t it just a dream? Did you go to the opera?⁠—Have you been on the Riviera?⁠—Oh, do tell me about those places⁠—is it like you read about in books?⁠—all beautiful, well-dressed women and men with nothing to do⁠—and did you go to Monte Carlo?”

This was all poured out in a rush of words; but in Mary’s experience the Continent was merely a place where the Continentals got the better of the English, and she said so.

“Travelling is so mixed up with discomfort, that it loses half its plumage,” she said. “I’ll tell you all I can about Paris some other time. Now you tell me,” she went on, folding carefully a silk blouse and putting it in a drawer, “are there any neighbours here? Will anyone come to call?”

“I’m afraid you’ll find it very dull here,” said Ellen. “There are no neighbours at all except Poss and Binjie, two young fellows on the next station. The people in town are just the publicans and the storekeeper, and all the selectors around us are a very wild lot. Very few strangers come that we can have in the house. They are nearly all cattle and sheep buyers, and they are either too nervous to say a word, or they talk horses. They always come just after mealtime, too, and we have to get everything laid on the table again⁠—sometimes we have ten meals a day in this house. And the swagmen come all day long, and Mrs. Gordon or I have to go and give them something to eat; there’s plenty to do, always. So you see, there are plenty of strangers, but no neighbours.”

“What about Mr. Blake?” said Miss Grant. “Isn’t he a neighbour?”

It would have needed a much quicker eye than Mary’s to catch the half-involuntary movement Ellen Harriott made when Blake’s name was mentioned. She flashed a look of enquiry at the heiress that seemed to say, “What interest do you take in Mr. Blake? What is he to you?”

Then the long eyelashes shut down over the dark eyes again, and with an air of indifference she said⁠—

“Oh Mr. Blake? Of course I know him. I dance with him sometimes at the show balls, and all that. I have been out for a ride with him, too. I think he’s nice, but Hugh and Mrs. Gordon won’t ask him here because he belongs to the selectors, and his mother was a Miss Donohoe. He takes up their cases⁠—and wins them, too. But he never comes here. He always stays down at the hotel when he comes out this way.”

“I intend to ask him here,” said Miss Grant. “He saved my life.”

Again the long eyelashes dropped so as to hide the sparkle of the eyes.

“Of course, if you like to ask him⁠—”

“Do you think he’d come?”

“Yes, I’m sure he would. If you like to write and ask him, Peter could ride down to Donohoe’s today with a note.”

From which it would seem that one, at any rate, of the Kuryong household was not wholly indifferent to Mr. Blake.

IX Some Visitors

After breakfast next morning Mary decided to spend the day in the company of the children, who were having holidays.

“Just as well for you to learn the house first” said Hugh, “before you tackle the property. The youngsters know where everything is⁠—within four miles, anyhow.”

Two little girls were impressed, and were told to take Miss Grant round and show her the way about the place; and they set off together in the bright morning sunlight, on a trip of exploration.

Now, no true Australian, young or old, ever takes any trouble or undergoes any exertion or goes anywhere without an object in view. So the children considered it the height of stupidity to walk simply for the sake of walking, and kept asking where they were to walk to.

“What shall we see if we go along this road?” asked Miss Grant, pointing with her dainty parasol along the wheel-track that meandered across the open flat and lost itself in the timber.

“Nothing,” said both children together.

“Then, what is there up that way?” she asked, waving her hand up towards the foothills and the blue mountains. “There must be some pretty flowers to look at up there?”

“No, there isn’t,” said the children.

“Well, let us go into the woods and see if we can’t find something,” she said determinedly; and with her reluctant guides she set off, trudging across the open forest through an interminable vista of gum trees.

After a while one of the girls said, “Hello, there’s Poss!”

Miss Grant looked up, and saw through the trees a large and very frightened bay horse, with a white face. On further inspection, a youth of about eighteen or twenty was noticed on the horse’s back, but he seemed so much a part of the animal that one might easily overlook him at a