My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin [ebook offline .TXT] 📗

which he alluded were a pair of thin-soled white canvas slippers⁠—not at all fitted for walking the eight miles on the hard hot road ahead of me. I walked resolutely on, without deigning a glance at Harold, who had slowed down to a crawling walk.

“Aren’t you ready to get up now?” he inquired presently.

I did not reply. At the end of a quarter of a mile he jumped out of the buggy, seized upon me, lifted me in, and laughed, saying, “You’re a very slashing little concern, but you are not big enough to do much damage.”

We were about halfway home when Barney gave a tremendous lurch, breaking a trace and some other straps. Mr. Beecham was at the head of the plunging horse in a twinkling. The harness seemed to be scattered everywhere.

“I expect I had better walk on now,” I remarked.

“Walk, be grannied! With two fat lazy horses to draw you?” returned Mr. Beecham.

Men are clumsy, stupid creatures regarding little things, but in their right place they are wonderful animals. If a buggy was smashed to smithereens, from one of their many mysterious pockets they would produce a knife and some string, and put the wreck into working order in no time.

Harold was as clever in this way as any other man with as much bushman ability as he had, so it was not long ere we were bowling along as merrily as ever.

Just before we came in sight of Caddagat he came to a standstill, jumped to the ground, untied Warrigal, and put the reins in my hand, saying:

“I think you can get home safely from here. Don’t be in such a huff⁠—I was afraid something might happen you if alone. You needn’t mention that I came with you unless you like. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Beecham. Thank you for being so officious,” I said by way of a parting shot.

“Old Nick will run away with you for being so ungrateful,” he returned.

“Old Nick will have me anyhow,” I thought to myself as I drove home amid the shadows. The hum of the cicadas was still, and dozens of rabbits, tempted out by the cool of the twilight, scuttled across my path and hid in the ferns.

I wished the harness had not broken, as I feared it would put a clincher on my being allowed out driving alone in future.

Joe Slocombe, the man who acted as groom and rouseabout, was waiting for me at the entrance gate.

“I’m glad you come at last, Miss Sybyller. The missus has been in a dreadful stoo for fear something had happened yuz. She’s been runnin’ in an’ out like a gurrl on the lookout fer her lover, and was torkin’ of sendin’ me after yuz, but she went to her tea soon as she see the buggy come in sight. I’ll put all the parcels on the back veranda, and yuz can go in at woncest or yuz’ll be late fer yer tea.”

“Joe, the harness broke and had to be tied up. That is what kept me so late,” I explained.

“The harness broke!” he exclaimed. “How the doose is that! Broke here in the trace, and that strap! Well, I’ll be hanged! I thought them straps couldn’t break only onder a tremenjous strain. The boss is so dashed partickler too. I believe he’ll sool me off the place; and I looked at that harness only yesterday. I can’t make out how it come to break so simple. The boss will rise the devil of a shine, and say you might have been killed.”

This put a different complexion on things. I knew Joe Slocombe could mend the harness with little trouble, as it was because he was what uncle Jay-Jay termed a “handy divil” at saddlery that he was retained at Caddagat. I said carelessly:

“If you mend the harness at once, Joe, uncle Julius need not be bothered about it. As it happened, there is no harm done, and I won’t mention the matter.”

“Thank you, miss,” he said eagerly. “I’ll mend it at once.”

Now that I had that piece of business so luckily disposed of, I did not feel the least nervous about meeting grannie. I took the mail in my arms and entered the dining-room, chirping pleasantly:

“Grannie, I’m such a good mail-boy. I have heaps of letters, and did not forget one of your commissions.”

“I don’t want to hear that now,” she said, drawing her dear old mouth into a straight line, which told me I was not going to palm things off as easily as I thought. “I want a reason for your conduct this afternoon.”

“Explain what, grannie?” I inquired.

“None of that pretence! Not only have you been most outrageously insulting to Mr. Hawden when I sent him with you, but you also deliberately and wilfully disobeyed me.”

Uncle Julius listened attentively, and Hawden looked at me with such a leer of triumph that my fingers tingled to smack his cars. Turning to my grandmother, I said distinctly and cuttingly:

“Grannie, I did not intentionally disobey you. Disobedience never entered my head. I hate that thing. His presence was detestable to me. When he got out at the gate I could not resist the impulse to drive off and leave him there. He looked such a complete jackdaw that you would have laughed yourself to see him.”

“Dear, oh dear! You wicked hussy, what will become of you!” And grannie shook her head, trying to look stern, and hiding a smile in her serviette.

“Your manners are not improving, Sybylla. I fear you must be incorrigible,” said aunt Helen.

When uncle Jay-Jay heard the whole particulars of the affair, he lay back in his chair and laughed fit to kill himself.

“You ought to be ashamed to always encourage her in her tomboyish ways, Julius. It grieves me to see she makes no effort to acquire a ladylike demeanour,” said grannie.

Mr. Hawden had come off second-best, so he arose from his half-finished meal and stamped out, banging the door after him, and muttering something about “a disgustingly spoilt and petted tomboy,” “a hideous