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

“Why, Miss Harriott!” said Poss in astonishment, “You’ve seen lots of ’em killed. Native cats, too. Watch me knock him out of that with a stick.”

“No, no, I’ll go back, too. I don’t feel like killing anything tonight. You come back too, Hugh.”

So the four walked back together, and as Blake had monopolised Mary on the way out, she now put herself beside Hugh, and the others walked behind. Hugh and Mary soon began to talk, but the other pair walked in silence for a while. Then Ellen Harriott said in a low voice, “Go a little slower, Gavan. Let them get away.” As they passed under the dense shadows of a huge wild-apple tree, Ellen stopped and, turning to Blake, held up her face to be kissed.

“Gavan, Gavan!” she said. “I was wondering when I would ever get a chance to speak to you. To think of you being here in the same house with me! It’s too wonderful, isn’t it?”

Gavan Blake kissed her. It was almost an effort to him at first, as his mind and heart were on fire with the thoughts of the other girl.

“My darling, my darling!” she said. “All the while you were walking with that girl, I knew you were dying to come and kiss me!” For such is the faith of women.

They stopped for a little while, and then moved on after the others, pausing now and again in the shadows. The girl poured out all her artless tale⁠—how she had been awake night after night, waiting for the day he should come. Then she told him how the heiress had praised his pluck and strength. “And oh! Gavan, I was so proud, I could have hugged her!”

Thus she rattled on, while he, because it was his nature found it no trouble to reply in kind, with a good imitation of sincerity. On such a night, with such a girl clinging to him, it would have been a very poor specimen of a man who could not have trumped up a sort of enthusiasm. But in his heart he was cursing his luck that just as chance had thrown the heiress in his way, and put her under an obligation to him, he was held to his old bargain⁠—the bargain that he had made for position’s sake, and which he would now have liked to break for the same reason.

It would be wearisome to record their talk, all the way up to the house. The girl⁠—impetuous, hot-blooded, excitable⁠—poured out her love-talk like a bird singing. Happiness complete was hers for the time; but Gavan’s heart was not in the wooing, and he listened and was silent.

Hugh and Mary, walking on ahead, knew nothing of the love scenes just behind them. They talked of many things, of the moonlight and the river and the scent of the flowers, but all the time Hugh felt diffident and tongue-tied. He had not the glib tongue of Gavan Blake, and he felt little at ease talking commonplaces. Mary Grant thought he must be worried over something, and, with her usual directness, went to the point.

“You are worrying over something,” she said. “What is it?”

“Oh, no; nothing.”

“It is not because I asked Mr. Blake here, is it?”

“Oh no! Goodness, no! Why, he is fifty times better than most of the people that come here. It just happens we had never asked him before. I think he is a very nice fellow.”

“I’m glad of that. I have asked him to come out again. He seems to know Miss Harriott quite well, though he doesn’t know your mother.”

“Yes, he met Miss Harriott at some of the race-balls, I think. She is a queer girl, full of fancies.”

“She seems a very quiet sort of girl to me,” said Miss Grant. But if she could have known what was going on about two hundred yards behind her, she might have altered her opinion.

On Monday, Hugh, Poss, and Binjie had to go out to an outlying paddock to draft a lot of station-sheep from a mob of travelling-sheep. As this meant a long, hard job, the three breakfasted by candlelight⁠—a good old fashion, this, but rather forgotten lately⁠—and Blake also turned out for early breakfast, as he wanted to get his drive to Tarrong over while the weather was cool. Of the women-folk, Ellen alone was up, boiling eggs, and making tea on a spirit-lamp; laughing and chattering meanwhile, and keeping them all amused; while outside in the frosty dawn, the stable boy shivered as he tightened the girths round the ribs of three very touchy horses. Poss and Binjie were each riding a station horse to “take the flashness out of him,” and Binjie’s horse tried to buck him off, but might as well have tried to shed his own skin; so he bolted instead, and disappeared with a snort and a rattle of hoofs over the hill. The others followed, with their horses very much inclined to go through the same performance.

After they had gone, Ellen Harriott and Blake were left alone in the breakfast-room. Outside, the heedless horse-boy was harnessing Blake’s ponies; but inside no one but themselves was awake, and as he finished his breakfast, Ellen stepped up to the table and blew out the two candles, leaving the room in semidarkness. She caught his hand, and he drew her to him. It was what she had been waiting for all night. She had pictured a parting, which was to be such sweet sorrow. Blake had also pictured it to himself, but in quite a different way.

He was determined to make an end of his engagement (or entanglement, whichever it could be called), and yet when the chance came he almost put it off; but the thought of what exposure and disgrace would mean, if his affairs were investigated, drove him on.

He stroked her hair for a while in silence, and then, with a laugh, said,