An Outback Marriage - Banjo Paterson (epub e reader txt) 📗

about twenty-four years of age she had the sedate and unemotional look that one sees in doctors and nurses⁠—people who have looked on death and birth, and sorrow and affliction. For Ellen Harriott had done her three years’ course as a nurse; she had a natural faculty for the business, and was in great request among the wild folk of the mountains, who looked upon her (and perhaps rightly) as quite equal to the Tarrong doctor in any emergency. She knew them all, for she had lived nearly all her life at Kuryong. When the family moved there from the back country a tutor was needed for the boys, and an old broken-down gentleman accepted the billet at low pay, on condition that he was allowed to bring his little daughter with him. When he died, the daughter still stayed on, and was made governess to the new generation of young folk. She was a queer, self-contained girl, saying little; and as Hugh walked in, she looked up at him, and wondered what new trouble was bringing him to his mother with the open letter in his hand.

“Mother,” said Hugh, “I have had a most extraordinary letter.”

“From Mr. Grant?” said the old lady, “What does he say?”

She saw by her son’s face that there was something more than usual in the wind, but one who had lived her life, from fortune to poverty, through strife and trial, was prepared to take things much more easily than Hugh.

“Is it anything very serious?”

“His daughter’s coming out to live here.”

“What?”

“Yes, here’s the letter. It only came this morning. Patsy was late, the river is up. I’ll read it to you.”

Seating himself at the table, Hugh spread out the letter, and read it:⁠—

“Dear Gordon,”

“The last lot of wethers, though they topped the market, only realised 10/-. I think you would show better judgment in keeping these sheep back a little. Don’t rely upon Satton’s advice. He is generally wrong, and is always most wrong when he is most sure he is right.

“My daughter has arrived from England, and will at once go up to the station. I have written to your mother on the subject. My daughter will represent me in everything, so I wish her to learn a little about stations. Send to meet her at the train on Wednesday next.

“Yours truly,

“W. G. Grant.”

“Wednesday next!” said Hugh, “that letter is three days delayed. Patsy couldn’t cross the river. She’ll be there before we can possibly get down. If no one meets her I wonder if she’ll have pluck enough to get into the coach and come on to Donohoe’s.”

“I don’t envy her the trip, if she does,” said Miss Harriott. “The coach-drive over those roads will seem awful to an English girl.”

“I’ll have to go down at once, anyhow,” said Hugh, “and meet her on the road somewhere. If she is at the railway, I can get there in two days. Have you a letter, Mother?”

“Yes,” said the old lady, “but I won’t show it to you now. You shall see it some other time.”

“Well, I’ll set about making a start,” said Hugh. “What trap had I better take?”

“You’d better take the big wagonette,” said the old lady, in her soft voice. “A young girl just out from England is sure to have a great deal of luggage, you know. I wonder if she is anything like Mr. Grant. I hope her temper is a little bit better.”

“You’d better come down with me, Miss Harriott, to meet her,” said Hugh. “I don’t suppose your luggage would be a load there and back, anyhow.”

“What about crossing the river?” said the old lady.

“Oh, we’ll get across somehow,” said Hugh, “will you come?”

“I think I’ll wait,” said the young lady meditatively, “She’ll be tired from travelling and looking after her luggage, and she had better meet the family one at a time. You go and meet her, and your mother and I will get her room ready. Does the letter say any more about her?”

“No, that’s all,” said Hugh. “Well, I’ll send the boy to run in the horses. I’ll take four horses in the big wagonette; I expect she’ll be waiting at Donohoe’s⁠—that is, if she left the railway-station in the coach⁠—if she is at Donohoe’s I’ll be back before dark.”

With this he went back to the office, and his mother and Miss Harriott went their separate ways to prepare for the comfort of the heiress. To Ellen Harriott the arrival was a new excitement, a change in the monotony of bush life; but to the old lady and Hugh it meant a great deal more. It meant that they would be no longer master and mistress of the big station on which they had lived so long, and which was now so much under their control that it seemed almost like their own.

Everything depended on what the girl was like. They had never even seen a photograph of her, and awaited her coming in a state of nervous expectancy. All over the district they had been practically considered owners of the big station; Hugh had taken on and dismissed employees at his will, had controlled the buying and selling of thousands of sheep and cattle, and now this strange girl was to come in with absolute power over them. They would be servants and dependants on the station, which had once belonged to them.

After Hugh had gone, the old lady sat back in her armchair and read over again her letter from Mr. Grant; and, lest it should be thought that that gentleman had only one side to his character, it is as well for the reader to know what was in the letter. It ran as follows:⁠—

“Dear Mrs. Gordon,”

“I am writing to you about a most important matter. Colonel Selwyn is dead, and my daughter has come out from England. I don’t know anyone to take charge of her except yourself. I am an old man now, and set in