Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

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About a quarter of an hour after father walks in, quiet as usual.
Nothing never made no difference to him, except he thought it was worth while.
He was middlin' glad to see us, and behaved kind enough to mother,
so the poor soul looked quite happy for her. It was little enough of that
she had for her share. By and by father walks outside with us,
and we had a long private talk.

It was a brightish kind of starlight night. As we walked down to the creek
I thought how often Jim and I had come out on just such a night
'possum hunting, and came home so tired that we were hardly able
to pull our boots off. Then we had nothing to think about
when we woke in the morning but to get in the cows; and didn't we enjoy
the fresh butter and the damper and bacon and eggs at breakfast time!
It seems to me the older people get the more miserable they get in this world.
If they don't make misery for themselves other people do it for 'em;
or just when everything's going straight, and they're doing their duty
first-rate and all that, some accident happens 'em just as if they was
the worst people in the world. I can't make it out at all.

`Well, boys,' says dad, `you've been lucky so far; suppose you had
a pretty good spree in Melbourne? You seen the game was up by the papers,
didn't you? But why didn't you stay where you were?'

`Why, of course, that brought us away,' says Jim; `we didn't want
to be fetched back in irons, and thought there was more show for it
in the bush here.'

`But even if they'd grabbed Starlight,' says the old man,
`you'd no call to be afeard. Not much chance of his peaching,
if it had been a hanging matter.'

`You don't mean to say there ain't warrants against us
and the rest of the lot?' I said.

`There's never a warrant out agin any one but Starlight,' said the old man.
`I've had the papers read to me regular, and I rode over to Bargo
and saw the reward of 200 Pounds (a chap alongside of me read it)
as is offered for a man generally known as Starlight, supposed to have left
the country; but not a word about you two and me, or the boy,
or them other coves.'

`So we might as well have stayed where we were, Jim.' Jim gave
a kind of groan. `Still, when you look at it, isn't it queer,' I went on,
`that they should only spot Starlight and leave us out? It looks as if
they was keepin' dark for fear of frightening us out of the country,
but watching all the same.'

`It's this way I worked it,' says father, rubbing his tobacco in his hands
the old way, and bringing out his pipe: `they couldn't be off
marking down Starlight along of his carryin' on so. Of course
he drawed notice to himself all roads. But the rest of us only come in
with the mob, and soon as they was sold stashed the camp and cleared out
different ways. Them three fellers is in Queensland long ago,
and nobody was to know them from any other road hands. I was back
with the old mare and Bilbah in mighty short time. I rode 'em night and day,
turn about, and they can both travel. You kept pretty quiet, as luck had it,
and was off to Melbourne quick. I don't really believe they dropped
to any of us, bar Starlight; and if they don't nab him
we might get shut of it altogether. I've known worse things
as never turned up in this world, and never will now.'
Here the old man showed his teeth as if he were going to laugh,
but thought better of it.

`Anyhow, we'd made it up to come home at Christmas,' says Jim;
`but it's all one. It would have saved us a deal of trouble in our minds
all the same if we'd known there was no warrants out after us two.
I wonder if they'll nail Starlight.'

`They can't be well off it,' says father. `He's gone off his head,
and stopped in some swell town in New Zealand -- Canterbury,
I think it's called -- livin' tiptop among a lot of young English swells,
instead of makin' off for the Islands, as he laid out to do.'

`How do you know he's there?' I said.

`I know, and that's enough,' snarls father. `I hear a lot in many ways
about things and people that no one guesses on, and I know this --
that he's pretty well marked down by old Stillbrook the detective
as went down there a month ago.'

`But didn't you warn him?'

`Yes, of course, as soon as I heard tell; but it's too late, I'm thinking.
He has the devil's luck as well as his own, but I always used to tell him
it would fail him yet.'

`I believe you're the smartest man of the crowd, dad,' says Jim,
laying his hand on father's shoulder. He could pretty nigh
get round the old chap once in a way, could Jim, surly as he was.
`What do you think we'd better do? What's our best dart?'

Father shook off his hand, but not roughly, and his voice wasn't so hard
when he said --

`Why, stop at home quiet, of course, and sleep in your beds at night.
Don't go planting in the gully, or some one 'll think you're wanted,
and let on to the police. Ride about the country till I give you the office.
Never fear but I'll have word quick enough. Go about and see
the neighbours round just as usual.'

Jim and I was quite stunned by this bit of news; no doubt we was pretty sorry
as ever we left Melbourne, but there was nothing for it now
but to follow it out. After all, we were at home, and it was pleasant
to think we wouldn't be hunted for a bit and might ride about the old place
and enjoy ourselves a bit. Aileen was as happy as the day was long,
and poor mother used to lay her head on Jim's neck and cry for joy
to have him with her. Even father used to sit in the front,
under the quinces, and smoke his pipe, with old Crib at his feet,
most as if he thought he was happy. I wonder if he ever looked back
to the days when he was a farmin' boy and hadn't took to poaching?
He must have been a smart, handy kind of lad, and what a different look
his face must have had then!

We had our own horses in pretty good trim, so we foraged up Aileen's mare,
and made it up to ride over to George Storefield's, and gave him a look-up.
He'd been away when we came, and now we heard he was home.

`George has been doing well all this time, of course,' I said.
`I expect he'll turn squatter some day and be made a magistrate.'

`Like enough,' says Jim. `More than one we could pick began lower down
than him, and sits on the Bench and gives coves like us a turn
when we're brought up before 'em. Fancy old George sayin',
"Is anything known, constable, of this prisoner's anterseedents?"
as I heard old Higgler say one day at Bargo.'

`Why do you make fun of these things, Jim, dear?' says Aileen,
looking so solemn and mournful like. `Oughtn't a steady worker
to rise in life, and isn't it sad to see cleverer men and better workers
-- if they liked -- kept down by their own fault?'

`Why wasn't your roan mare born black or chestnut?' says Jim, laughing,
and pretending to touch her up. `Come along, and let's see if she can trot
as well as she used to do?'

`Poor Lowan,' says she, patting the mare's smooth neck
(she was a wonderful neat, well-bred, dark roan, with black points --
one of dad's, perhaps, that he'd brought her home one time
he was in special good humour about something. Where she was bred or how,
nobody ever knew); `she was born pretty and good. How little trouble
her life gives her. It's a pity we can't all say as much,
or have as little on our minds.'

`Whose fault's that?' says Jim. `The dingo must live as well as the collie
or the sheep either. One's been made just the same as the other.
I've often watched a dingo turn round twice, and then pitch himself down
in the long grass like as if he was dead. He's not a bad sort, old dingo,
and has a good time of it as long as it lasts.'

`Yes, till he's trapped or shot or poisoned some day, which he always is,'
said Aileen bitterly. `I wonder any man should be content
with a wicked life and a shameful death.' And she struck Lowan with a switch,
and spun down the slope of the hill between the trees like a forester-doe
with the hunter-hound behind her.

When we came up with her she was all right again, and tried to smile.
Whatever put her out for the time she always worked things by kindness,
and would lead us straight if she could. Driven, she knew we couldn't be;
and I believe she did us about ten times as much good that way
as if she had scolded and raged, or even sneered at us.

When we rode up to Mr. Storefield's farm we were quite agreeable
and pleasant again, Jim makin' believe his horse could walk fastest,
and saying that her mare's pace was only a double shuffle of an amble
like Bilbah's, and she declaring that the mare's was a true walk --
and so it was. The mare could do pretty well everything but talk,
and all her paces were first-class.

Old Mrs. Storefield was pottering about in the garden
with a big sun-bonnet on. She was a great woman for flowers.

`Come along in, Aileen, my dear,' she said. `Gracey's in the dairy;
she'll be out directly. George only came home yesterday.
Who be these you've got with ye? Why, Dick!' she says,
lookin' again with her sharp, old, gray eyes, `it's you, boy, is it?
Well, you've changed a deal too; and Jim too. Is he as full of mischief
as ever? Well, God bless you, boys, I wish you well! I wish you well.
Come in out of the sun, Aileen; and one of you take the horses
up to the stable. You'll find George there somewhere.'

Aileen had jumped down by this time, and had thrown her rein to Jim,
so we rode up to the stable, and a very good one it was,
not long put up, that we could see. How the place had changed,
and how different it was from ours! We remembered the time
when their hut wasn't a patch on ours, when old Isaac Storefield,
that had been gardener at Mulgoa to some of the big gentlemen
in the old days, had saved a bit of money and taken up a farm;
but bit by bit their place had been getting better and bigger every year,
while ours had stood still and now was going back.

Chapter 15

George Storefield's place, for the old man was dead and all the place
belonged to him and Gracey, quite stunned Jim and me. We'd been away
more than a year, and he'd pulled down the old fences and put up new ones --
first-rate work it was too; he was always a dead hand at splitting.
Then there was a big hay-shed, chock-full of good sweet hay and wheat sheaves,
and, last of all, the new stable, with six stalls and a loft above, and racks,
all built of ironbark slabs, as solid and reg'lar as a church, Jim said.

They'd a good six-roomed cottage and a new garden fence ever so long.
There were more fruit trees in the garden and a lot of good draught horses
standing about, that looked well, but as if they'd come off a journey.

The stable door opens, and out comes old George as hearty as ever,
but looking full of business.

`Glad to see you, boys,' he says; `what a time you've been away!
Been away myself these three months with a lot of teams carrying.
I've taken greatly to the business lately. I'm just settling up
with my drivers, but put the horses in, there's chaff and corn in the mangers,
and I'll be down in a few minutes. It's well on to dinner-time, I see.'

We took the bridles off and tied up the horses -- there was any amount of feed
for them -- and strolled down to the cottage again.

`Wonder whether Gracey's as nice as she used to be,' says Jim.
`Next to Aileen I used to think she wasn't to be beat.
When I was a little chap I believed you and she must be married for certain.
And old George and Aileen. I never laid out any one for myself, I remember.'

`The first two don't look like coming off,' I said. `You're the likeliest man
to marry and settle if Jeanie sticks to you.'

`She'd better go down to the pier and drown herself comfortably,' said Jim.
`If she knew what was before us all, perhaps she would. Poor little Jeanie!
We'd no right to drag other people into our troubles. I believe we're getting
worse and worse. The sooner we're shot or locked up the better.'

`You won't think so when it comes, old man,' I said. `Don't bother your head
-- it ain't the best part of you -- about things that can't be helped.
We're not the only horses that can't be kept on the course --
with a good turn of speed too.'

`"They want shooting like the dingoes," as Aileen said.
They're never no good, except to ruin those that back 'em
and disgrace their owners and the stable they come out of.
That's our sort, all to pieces. Well, we'd better come in.
Gracey 'll think we're afraid to face her.'

When we went away last Grace Storefield was a little over seventeen,
so now she was nineteen all out, and a fine girl she'd grown.
Though I never used to think her a beauty, now I almost began to think
she must be. She wasn't tall, and Aileen looked slight alongside of her;
but she was wonderful fair and fresh coloured for an Australian girl,
with a lot of soft brown hair and a pair of clear blue eyes
that always looked kindly and honestly into everybody's face.
Every look of her seemed to wish to do you good and make you think
that nothing that wasn't square and right and honest and true
could live in the same place with her.

She held out both hands to me and said --

`Well, Dick, so you're back again. You must have been
to the end of the world, and Jim, too. I'm very glad to see you both.'

She looked into my face with that pleased look that put me in mind of her
when she was a little child and used to come toddling up to me,
staring and smiling all over her face the moment she saw me.
Now she was a grown woman, and a sweet-looking one too.
I couldn't lift her up and kiss her as I used to do, but I felt as if
I should like to do it all the same. She was the only creature
in the whole world, I think, that liked me better than Jim.
I'd been trying to drive all thoughts of her out of my heart,
seeing the tangle I'd got into in more ways than one; but now the old feeling
which had been a part of me ever since I'd grown up came rushing back
stronger than ever. I was surprised at myself, and looked queer I daresay.

Then Aileen laughed, and Jim comes to the rescue and says --

`Dick doesn't remember you, Gracey. You've grown such a swell, too.
You can't be the little girl we used to carry on our backs.'

`Dick remembers very well,' she says, and her very voice was ever so much
fuller and softer, `don't you, Dick?' and she looked into my face
as innocent as a child. `I don't think he could pull me out of the water
and carry me up to the cottage now.'

`You tumble in and we'll try,' says Jim; `first man to keep you for good --
eh, Gracey? It's fine hot weather, and Aileen shall see fair play.'

`You're just as saucy as ever, Jim,' says she, blushing and smiling.
`I see George coming, so I must go and fetch in dinner. Aileen's going
to help me instead of mother. You must tell us all about your travels
when we sit down.'

When George came in he began to talk to make up for lost time,
and told us where he had been -- a long way out in some new back country,
just taken up with sheep. He had got a first-rate paying price
for his carriage out, and had brought back and delivered a full load of wool.

`I intend to do it every year for a bit,' he said. `I can breed and feed
a good stamp of draught horse here. I pay drivers for three waggons
and drive the fourth myself. It pays first-rate so far,
and we had very fair feed all the way there and back.'

`Suppose you get a dry season,' I said, `how will that be?'

`We shall have to carry forage, of course; but then carriage will be higher,
and it will come to the same thing. I don't like being so long
away from home; but it pays first-rate, and I think I see a way
to its paying better still.'

`So you've ridden over to show them the way, Aileen,' he said,
as the girls came in; `very good of you it was. I was afraid
you'd forgotten the way.'

`I never forget the way to a friend's place, George,' she said,
`and you've been our best friend while these naughty boys have left
mother and me so long by ourselves. But you've been away yourself.'

`Only four months,' he said; `and after a few more trips
I shan't want to go away any more.'

`That will be a good day for all of us,' she said. `You know, Gracey,
we can't do without George, can we? I felt quite deserted, I can tell you.'

`He wouldn't have gone away at all if you'd held up your little finger,
you know that, you hard-hearted girl,' said Grace, trying to frown.
`It's all your fault.'

`Oh! I couldn't interfere with Mr. Storefield's business,' said Aileen,
looking very grave. `What kind of a country was it you were out in?'

`Not a bad place for sheep and cattle and blacks,' said poor George,
looking rather glum; `and not a bad country to make money or do anything
but live in, but that hot and dry and full of flies and mosquitoes
that I'd sooner live on a pound a week down here than take a good station
as a present there. That is, if I was contented,' he went on to say,
with a sort of a groan.

There never was a greater mistake in the world, I believe,
than for a man to let a woman know how much he cares for her.
It's right enough if she's made up her mind to take him, no odds what happens.
But if there's any half-and-half feeling in her mind about him,
and she's uncertain and doubtful whether she likes him well enough,
all this down-on-your-knees business works against you,
more than your worst enemy could do. I didn't know so much about it then.
I've found it out since, worse luck. And I really believe
if George had had the savey to crack himself up a little,
and say he'd met a nice girl or two in the back country and hid his hand,
Aileen would have made it up with him that very Christmas,
and been a happy woman all her life.

When old Mrs. Storefield came in she put us through our facings pretty brisk
-- where we'd been, what we'd done? What took us to Melbourne, --
how we liked it? What kind of people they were? and so on.
We had to tell her a good lot, part of it truth, of course, but pretty mixed.
It made rather a good yarn, and I could see Grace was listening with her heart
as well as her ears. Jim said generally we met some very nice people
in Melbourne named Jackson, and they were very kind to us.

`Were there any daughters in the family, Jim?' asked Grace.

`Oh! yes, three.'

`Were they good-looking?'

`No, rather homely, particularly the youngest.'

`What did they do?'

`Oh! their mother kept a boarding-house. We stayed there.'

I don't think I ever knew Jim do so much lying before; but after he'd begun
he had to stick to it. He told me afterwards he nearly broke down
about the three daughters; but was rather proud of making the youngest
the ugliest.

`I can see Gracey's as fond of you as ever she was, Dick,' says he;
`that's why she made me tell all those crammers. It's an awful pity
we can't all square it, and get spliced this Christmas.
Aileen would take George if she wasn't a fool, as most women are.
I'd like to bring Jeanie up here, and join George in the carrying business.
It's going to be a big thing, I can see. You might marry Gracey,
and look after both places while we were away.'

`And how about Kate?'

`The devil take her! and then he'd have a bargain. I wish you'd never
dropped across her, and that she wasn't Jeanie's sister,' blurts out Jim.
`She'll bring bad luck among us before she's done, I feel,
as sure as we're standing here.'

`It's all a toss up -- like our lives; married or lagged,
bushwork or roadwork (in irons), free or bond. We can't tell
how it will be with us this day year.'

`I've half a mind to shoot myself,' says Jim, `and end it all. I would, too,
only for mother and Aileen. What's the use of life that isn't life,
but fear and misery, from one day's end to another, and we only just grown up?
It's d----d hard that a chap's brains don't grow along with
his legs and arms.'

We didn't ride home till quite the evening. Grace would have us stay for tea;
it was a pretty hot day, so there was no use riding in the sun.
George saddled his horse, and he and Grace rode part of the way home with us.
He'd got regular sunburnt like us, and, as he could ride a bit,
like most natives, he looked better outside of a horse than on his own legs,
being rather thick-set and shortish; but his heart was in the right place,
like his sister's, and his head was screwed on right, too.
I think more of old George now than I ever did before,
and wish I'd had the sense to value his independent straight-ahead nature,
and the track it led him, as he deserved.

Jim and I rode in front, with Gracey between us. She had on a neat habit
and a better hat and gloves than Aileen, but nothing could ever give her
the seat and hand and light, easy, graceful way with her in the saddle
that our girl had. All the same she could ride and drive too,
and as we rode side by side in the twilight, talking about the places
I'd been to, and she wanting to know everything (Jim drew off a bit
when the road got narrow), I felt what a fool I'd been to let things slide,
and would have given my right hand to have been able to put them as they were
three short years before.

At last we got to the Gap; it was the shortest halt from their home.
George shook hands with Aileen, and turned back.

`We'll come and see you next ----' he said.

`Christmas Eve!' said Aileen.

`Christmas Eve let it be,' says George.

`All right,' I said, holding Grace's hand for a bit. And so we parted --
for how long, do you think?

Chapter 16

When we got home it was pretty late, and the air was beginning to cool
after the hot day. There was a low moon, and everything showed out clear,
so that you could see the smallest branches of the trees on Nulla Mountain,
where it stood like a dark cloud-bank against the western sky.
There wasn't the smallest breeze. The air was that still and quiet
you could have heard anything stir in the grass, or almost a 'possum
digging his claws into the smooth bark of the white gum trees.
The curlews set up a cry from time to time; but they didn't sound
so queer and shrill as they mostly do at night. I don't know how it was,
but everything seemed quiet and pleasant and homelike,
as if a chap might live a hundred years, if it was all like this,
and keep growing better and happier every day. I remember all this
so particular because it was the only time I'd felt like it for years,
and I never had the same feeling afterwards -- nor likely to.

`Oh! what a happy day I've had,' Aileen said, on a sudden.
Jim and I and her had been riding a long spell without speaking.
`I don't know when I've enjoyed myself so much; I've got quite
out of the way of being happy lately, and hardly know the taste of it.
How lovely it would be if you and Jim could always stay at home like this,
and we could do our work happy and comfortable together, without separating,
and all this deadly fear of something terrible happening,
that's never out of my mind. Oh! Dick, won't you promise me
to stop quiet and work steady at home, if you -- if you and Jim
haven't anything brought against you?'

She bent forward and looked into my face as she said this.
I could see her eyes shine, and every word she said seemed to come
straight from her heart. How sad and pitiful she looked,
and we felt for a moment just as we did when we were boys,
and she used to come and persuade us to go on with our work
and not grieve mother, and run the risk of a licking from father
when he came home.

Her mare, Lowan, was close alongside of my horse, stepping along
at her fast tearing walk, throwing up her head and snorting
every now and then, but Aileen sat in her saddle better than some people
can sit in a chair; she held the rein and whip together
and kept her hand on mine till I spoke.

`We'll do all we can, Aileen dear, for you and poor mother, won't we, Jim?'
I felt soft and down-hearted then, if ever I did. `But it's too late --
too late! You'll see us now and then; but we can't stop at home quiet,
nor work about here all the time as we used to do. That day's gone.
Jim knows it as well as me. There's no help for it now.
We'll have to do like the rest -- enjoy ourselves a bit while we can,
and stand up to our fight when the trouble comes.'

She took her hand away, and rode on with her rein loose and her head down.
I could see the tears falling down her face, but after a bit
she put herself to rights, and we rode quietly up to the door.
Mother was working away in her chair, and father walking up and down
before the door smoking.

When we were letting go the horses, father comes up and says --

`I've got a bit of news for you, boys; Starlight's been took,
and the darkie with him.'

`Where?' I said. Somehow I felt struck all of a heap by hearing this.
I'd got out of the way of thinking they'd drop on him.
As for Jim, he heard it straight enough, but he went on whistling
and patting the mare's neck, teasing her like, because she was so uneasy
to get her head-stall off and run after the others.

`Why, in New Zealand, to be sure. The blamed fool stuck there all this time,
just because he found himself comfortably situated among people as he liked.
I wonder how he'll fancy Berrima after it all? Sarves him well right.'