An Outback Marriage · Chapter 16 (2/2)

As the old man finished speaking, Ah Loy brought in the evening meal⁠—about a dozen beautifully tender roast ducks in a large tin dish, a tin plate full of light, delicately-browned cakes of the sort known as “puftalooners,” and a huge billy of tea. There were no vegetables; pepper and salt were in plenty, and Worcester sauce. They ate silently, as hungry men do, while the pigs and cattle-dogs marched in at the open-door, and hustled each other for the scraps that were thrown to them.

“How is it the pigs have no tails?” asked Carew.

“Bit off, Mister. The dogs bit them off. They’ve got the ears pretty well chawed off ’em too.”

Just then a pig and a dog made a simultaneous rush for a bone, and the pig secured it. The dog, by way of revenge, fastened on to the pig, and made him squeal like a locomotive engine whistling. The old man kicked at large under the table, and restored order.

“You ain’t eatin’, Mister,” he said, forking a duck on to Carew’s plate with his own fork. “These ducks is all right. They’re thick on the lagoon. The Chow only had two cartridges, but he got about a dozen. He lays down and fires along the water, and they’re floatin’ very near solid on it. But here’s the cattle comin’ up.”

Looking out of the door, they saw about two hundred cattle coming in a long, stringing mob up the plain, driven by four black figures on horseback. As they drew near the yards, several cattle seemed inclined to bolt away; but the sharp fusillade of terrific whips kept them up to the mark, and, after a sudden halt for a few minutes, the mob streamed in through the gates. A number of rails were put in the posts, and made fast with pegs. The riders then remounted, and came cantering and laughing down to the homestead. All four were aboriginals, two were the boys that had been seen at the yard. The two new boys were dressed in moleskins, cotton shirts, and soft felt hats, and each had a gaudy handkerchief tied round his throat.

One was light, wiry, and graceful as a gazelle⁠—a very handsome boy, the embodiment of lightness and activity. The other was short and squat, with a broad face. Both grinned lightheartedly as they rode up, let their horses go, and carried their saddles on to the verandah, without bothering about the strangers.

“Those are nice-looking boys,” said Carew. “I mean the two new boys just coming in.”

“New boys!” said the old man. “Them! They’re my two gins. And see here, Mister, you’ll have to keep off hangin’ round them while you’re camped here. I can’t stand anyone interferin’ with them. If you kick my dorg, or go after my gin, then you rouse all the monkey in me. Those two do all my cattle work. Come here, Maggie,” he called, and the slight “boy” walked over with a graceful, easy swing.

“This is new feller?” he said, introducing Carew, who bowed gracefully. “He b’long Sydney. You think him plenty nice feller, eh?”

“Yowi,” said the girl laughing. “He nice feller. You got ’em matches?” she said, beaming on Carew, and pulling a black pipe out of her trousers’ pocket. “Big fool that Lucy, drop ’em matches.”

Carew handed over his matchbox in speechless amazement.

“They’ve been out all day with the cattle,” said the old man. “I’ve got a lot of wild cattle in that there mob. I go out with a few quiet ones in the moonlight, and when the wild cattle come out of the scrubs to look at ’em we rush the whole lot out into the plain. Great hands these gins are⁠—just as good as the boys.”

“Good Lord!” said Carew, looking at the two little figures, who had now a couple of ducks each, a puftalooner or two, and a big pannikin of tea, and were sitting on the edge of the verandah eating away with great enjoyment; “what have they been doing with the cattle today?”

“Minding them lest the wild ones should clear out. They dropped their matches somehow; that’s what fetched ’em home early. They’ll have to sleep on the verandah tonight. We’ll make that their boodore, as they say in France.”

The dark was now falling; the sunlight had left long, faint, crimson streaks in the sky. The air was perceptibly cooler, and flights of waterfowl hurried overhead, making their way to the river. The Chinaman lighted a slush-lamp, by whose flickering light Charlie produced from his swag a small bundle of papers, and threw them on the table.

“We might as well get our business over, Keogh,” he said. “I’ve got the paper here for you to sign, making over your interest in the block and the cattle, and all that.”

He pored over the document, muttering as he read it. “Your name’ll have to be filled in, and there’s a blank for the name of the person it’s transferred to.”

“That’ll be Mr. Grant’s name,” suggested Carew.

“I don’t know so much about that,” said Charlie. “I don’t think, if a man has a mortgage over a place, that he can take it in his own name. That fool Pinnock didn’t tell me. He was too anxious to know how we got on with the larrikins to give me any useful information. Anyhow, I’ll fill in my own name⁠—for all the block is worth I ain’t likely to steal it. I can transfer it to Mr. Grant afterwards.”

“I don’t care,” said the old man indifferently, “I’ll transfer my interest to anyone you like. I’m done with it. I’m signing away fifteen of the best years of my life. But my name ain’t Keogh, you know, though I always went by that. My father died when I was a kiddy, and my mother married again, so I got called by my stepfather’s name all my life. This is my right name, and it’s a poor man’s name today.” And as the two men bent over him in the light of the flickering slush-lamp, he wrote, with stiff, uncertain fingers, “Patrick Henry Considine.”