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

him with twopence⁠—a disaster which caused him to apply to his firm for transfer to some foreign country at once. She marched into the bar, where Dan, the landlord’s son, was sweeping, while Mrs. Connellan, the landlady, was wiping glasses in the midst of a stale fragrance of overnight beer and tobacco-smoke.

“I am going to Kuryong,” said the young lady, “and I expected to meet Mr. Gordon here. Is he here?”

Mrs. Connellan looked at her open-eyed. Such an apparition was not often seen in Tarrong. Mr. and Mrs. Connellan had only just “taken the pub,” and what with trying to keep Connellan sober and refusing drinks to tramps, loafers, and blackfellows, Mrs. Connellan was pretty well worn out. As for making the hotel pay, that idea had been given up long ago. It was against Mrs. Connellan’s instincts of hospitality to charge anyone for a meal or a bed, and when any great rush of bar trade took place it generally turned out to be “Connellan’s shout,” so the hotel was not exactly a goldmine. In fact, Mrs. Connellan had decided that the less business she did, the more money she would make; and she rather preferred that people should not stop at her hotel. This girl looked as if she would give trouble; might even expect clean beds and clean sheets when there were none within the hotel, and might object to fleas, of which there were plenty. So the landlady pulled herself together, and decided to speed the parting guest as speedily as possible.

“Mr. Gordon couldn’t git in,” she said. “The cricks (creeks) is all up. The coach is going down to Kiley’s Crossing today. You had better go with that.”

“How soon does the coach start?”

“In an hour or two. As soon as Pat Donohoe, the mailman, has got a horse shod. Come in and have a wash, and fix yourself up till breakfast is ready. Where’s your bag?”

“My luggage is at the railway-station.”

“I’ll send Dan over for it. Dan, Dan, Dan!”

“ ’Ello,” said Dan’s voice, from the passage, where, with the wild-eyed servant-girl, he had been taking stock of the new arrival.

“Go over to the station and git this lady’s bag. Is there much to carry?”

“There are only four portmanteaux and three bags, and two boxes and a hatbox, and a roll of rugs; and please be careful of the hatbox.”

“You’d better git the barrer, Dan.”

“Better git the bloomin’ bullock-dray,” growled Dan, quite keen to see this aggregation of luggage; and foreseeing something to talk about for the next three months. “She must ha’ come up to start a store, I reckon,” said Dan; and off he went to struggle with boxes for the next half-hour or so.

Over Mary Grant’s experiences at the Tarrong Hotel we will not linger. The dirty water, peopled by wriggling animalculae, that she poured out of the bedroom jug; the damp, cloudy, unhealthy-smelling towel on which she dried her face; the broken window through which she could hear herself being discussed by loafers in the yard; all these things are matters of course in bush townships, for the Australian, having a soul above details, does not shine at hotel-keeping. The breakfast was enlivened by snatches of song from the big, good-natured bush-girl who waited at table, and who “fancied” her voice somewhat, and marched into the breakfast-room singing in an earsplitting Soprano:

“It’s a vilet from me”⁠—

(Spoken.) “What you’ll have, there’s chops, steaks, and bacon and eggs”⁠—“Chops, please.”

(Singer continues.) “Sainted mother’s”⁠—

(Spoken.) “Tea or coffee”⁠—“Tea, please.”

(Singer finishes.)⁠—“grave.”

While she ate, Miss Grant had an uneasy feeling that she was being stared at; all the female staff and hangers-on of the place having gathered round the door to peer in at her and to appraise to the last farthing her hat, her tailor-made gown, and her solid English walking-shoes, and to indulge in wild speculation as to who or what she could be. A Kickapoo Indian in full war-paint, arriving suddenly in a little English village, could not have created more excitement than she did at Tarrong. After breakfast she walked out on the verandah that ran round the little one-story weatherboard hotel, and looked down the mile and a-half of road, with little galvanised-iron-roofed cottages at intervals of a quarter of a mile or so, that constituted the township. She watched Conroy, the policeman, resplendent in breeches and polished boots, swagger out from the courthouse yard, leading his horse to water. The town was waking to its daily routine; Garry, the butcher, took down the clumsy board that passed for a window-shutter, and McDermott, the carter, passed the hotel, riding a huge rough-coated draught-horse, barebacked. Everyone gave him a “Mornin’, Billy!” as he passed, and he returned the greeting as he did every morning of his life. A few children loitered past to the little schoolhouse, staring at her as though she were some animal.

She was in a hurry to get away⁠—English people always are⁠—but in the bright lexicon of the bush there is no such word as hurry. Tracey, the blacksmith, had not by any means finished shoeing the coach-horse yet. So Mrs. Connellan made an attempt to find out who she was, and why she was going to Kuryong.

“You’ll have a nice trip in the coach,” she said. “Lier (lawyer) Blake’s going down. He’s a nice feller.”

“Yes?”

“Father Kelly, too. He’s good company.”

“Yes?”

“Are you staying long at Kuryong?”

“Some time, I expect.”

“Are you going to teach the children?”

“No, I’m going to live there. My father owns Kuryong. My father is Mr. Grant.”

Mrs. Connellan was simply staggered at this colossal treasure-trove, this majestic piece of gossip that had fallen on her like rain from Heaven. Mr. Grant’s daughter! Going out to Kuryong! What a piece of news! Hardly knowing what she did, she shuffled out of the room, and interrupted the singing waitress who was wiping plates, and had just got back to “It’s a vilet” when Mrs. Connellan burst in on her.

“Maggie! Maggie! Do you know who that is? Grant’s daughter! The one that used to be in England. She must be going to Kuryong to