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

into a row at a music-hall one night, and threw the chucker-out in among a lot of valuable pot plants, and irretrievably ruined him.”

“Nice sort of man,” said the Bo’sun. “I’ve seen plenty of his sort, worse luck; he’ll be borrowing fivers after the first week. I’ll put him on to you fellows.”

The globetrotter smiled a sickly smile, and changed the subject. “What’s old Grant like⁠—the man he’s going to? Squatter man, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, and one of the real old sort, too,” interposed Pinnock, “perfect gentleman, you know, but apt to make himself deuced unpleasant if everything doesn’t go exactly to suit him; sort of chap who thinks that everyone who doesn’t agree with him ought to be put to death at once. He had a row with his shearers one year, and offered Jack Delaney a new Purdey gun if he’d fire the first two charges into the shearers’ camp at night.”

“Ha!” said Gillespie. “That’s his sort, eh? Well, if this Carew is the Carew I mean, he and the old fellow will be well met. They’ll about do for each other in the first week or two.”

“No great loss, either,” said the Bo’sun. “Anyhow I’ve asked this new chum to dinner tonight, and Charlie Gordon’s coming too. He was in my office today, but hadn’t heard of the new chum. Gordon’s a member now.”

“What’s he like?” said Gillespie. “Anything like the gentleman that wanted the shearers killed?”

“Oh, no; a good fellow,” said the Bo’sun, taking a sip of sherry. “He manages stations for Grant, and the old man has kept him out on the back-stations nearly all his life. He was out in the Gulf-country in the early days⁠—got starved out in droughts, swept away in floods, lost in the bush, speared by blacks, and all that sort of thing, in the days when men camped under bushes and didn’t wear shirts. Gone a bit queer in the head, I think, but a good chap for all that.”

“How did this Grant make all his money” asked Gillespie. “He’s awfully well off, isn’t he? Stations everywhere? Is he any relation to Gordon?”

“No; old Gordon⁠—Charlie’s father⁠—used to have the money. He had a lot of stations in the old days, and employed Grant as a manager. Grant was a new chum Scotchman with no money, but a demon for hard work, and the most headstrong, bad-tempered man that ever lived⁠—hard to hold at any time. After he’d worked for Gordon for awhile he went to the diggings and made a huge pile; and when old Gordon got a bit short of cash he took Grant into partnership.”

“It must have been funny for a man to have his old manager as a partner!”

“It wasn’t at all funny for Gordon,” said the lawyer, grimly. “Anything but funny. They each had stations of their own outside the partnership, and all Gordon’s stations went wrong, and Grant’s went right. It never seemed to rain on Gordon’s stations, while Grant’s had floods. So Gordon got short of money again and borrowed from Grant, and when he was really in a fix Grant closed on him and sold him out for good and all.”

“What an old screw! What did he do that for?”

“Just pure obstinacy⁠—Gordon had contradicted him or something, so he sold him up just to show which was right.”

“And what did Gordon do after he was sold up?”

“Died, and didn’t leave a penny. So then Bully Grant wheeled round and gave Gordon’s widow a station to live on, and fixed the two sons up managing his stations. Goodness knows how much he’s worth now. Doesn’t even know it himself.”

“And has he no children? Was he ever married?”

The lawyer lit a cigarette and puffed at it.

“He went to England and got married; there’s a daughter. The wife’s dead; the daughter is in England still⁠—never been out here. There’s a story that before he made his money he married a bush girl up on the station, but no one believes that. The daughter in England will get everything when he dies. A chance for you, Gillespie. Go home and marry her⁠—she’ll be worth nearly a million of money.”

“I’ll think about it,” said the globetrotter.

As he spoke a buttony boy came up to the Bo’sun.

“Gentleman to see you, sir,” he said. “Mr. Carew, sir.”

The Bo’sun hurried off to bring in his guest, while Pinnock called after him⁠—“Mind your eye, Bo’sun. Be civil to him. See that he doesn’t kill a waiter or two on the way up. Not but what he’d be welcome to do it, for all the good they are here,” he added, gloomily, taking another sip of his sherry and bitters; and before he had finished it the Bo’sun and his guest entered the room.

They had expected to see a Hercules, a fiery-faced, fierce-eyed man. This was merely a broad-shouldered, well-built, well-groomed youth, about twenty-three years of age; his face was square and rather stolid, clean-shaven, brown-complexioned, with honest eyes and a firm-set mouth. As he stood at the door he adopted the wooden expression that a University man always wears in the presence of strangers. He said nothing on being introduced to Pinnock; and when the globetrotter came up and claimed acquaintance, defining himself as “Gillespie of Balliol,” the stranger said he didn’t remember him, and regarded him with an aspect of armed neutrality. After a sherry and bitters he thawed a little, and the Bo’sun started to cross-examine him.

“Mr. Grant of Kuryong wired to me about you,” he said. “I suppose you came in the Carthaginia?”

“Yes,” said the stranger, speaking in the regulation English University voice, a little deeper than usual. “I left her at Adelaide. I’m out for some bush experience, don’t you know. I’ll get you to tell me some place to stop at till I leave, if you don’t mind.”

His manner was distinctly apologetic, and he seemed anxious to give as little trouble as possible.

“Oh! you stop here,” said the Bo’sun. “I’ll have you made an honorary member. They’ll