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

“That’s awfully good of you. Thanks very much indeed.”

“Oh! not at all. You’ll find the club not so bad, and a lot better than where you’re going with old Grant. He’s a regular demon to make fellows work. It’s pretty rough on the stations sometimes.”

“Ah! yes; awf’lly rough, I believe. Quite frightened me, what I heard of it, don’t you know. Still, I suppose one must expect to rough it a bit. Eh, what!”

“Charlie Gordon will he here in a minute,” said the Bo’sun. “He can tell you all about it. Here he is now,” he added, as the door swung open and the long-waited-for guest entered the room.

The newcomer was unmistakably a man from Far Out; tall, wiry-framed, and very dark, and so spare and lean of figure that he did not seem to have an ounce of superfluous flesh anywhere. His face was as hard and impassive as a Red Indian’s, and looked almost black by contrast with his white shirtfront. So did his hands. He had thin straight hair, high cheekbones, and a drooping black moustache. But the eyes were the most remarkable feature. Very keen and piercing they were, deep-set in the head; even when he was looking straight at anyone he seemed to be peering into endless space through the man in front of him. Such eyes men get from many years of staring over great stretches of sunlit plain where no colour relieves the blinding glare⁠—nothing but dull grey clumps of saltbush and the dull green Mitchell grass.

His whole bearing spoke of infinite determination and self-reliance⁠—the square chin, the steadfast eyes, telling their tale as plainly as print. In India he might have passed for an officer of native cavalry in mufti; but when he spoke he used the curious nasal drawl of the far-out bushman, the slow deliberate speech that comes to men who are used to passing months with the same companions in the unhurried Australian bush. Occasionally he lapsed into reveries, out of which he would come with a start and break in on other people’s conversation, talking them down with a serene indifference to their feelings.

“Come out to old man Grant, have you?” he drawled to Carew, when the ceremonies of introduction were over. “Well, I can do something better for you than that. I want a mate for my next trip, and a rough lonely hot trip it’ll be. But don’t you make any mistake. The roughest and hottest I can show you will be child’s play to having anything to do with Grant. You come with me.”

“Hadn’t I better see Mr. Grant first?”

“No, he won’t care. The old man doesn’t take much notice of new chums⁠—he gets them out by the bushel. He might meet a man at dinner in England and the man might say, ‘Grant, you’ve got some stations. I’ve got a young fellow that’s no use at home⁠—or anywhere else for that matter⁠—can’t you oblige me, and take him and keep him out of mischief for a while?’ And if the old man had had about a bottle of champagne, he’d say, ‘Yes, I’ll take him⁠—for a premium,’ or if he’d had two bottles, he’d say, ‘Send along your new chum⁠—I’ll make a man of him or break his neck.’ And perhaps in the next steamer out the fellow comes, and Grant just passes him on to me. Never looks at him, as likely as not. Don’t you bother your head about Grant⁠—you come with me.”

As he drawled out his last sentence, a move was made to dinner; so the Englishman was spared the pain of making any comments on his own unimportance in Mr. Grant’s eyes, and they trooped into the dining-room in silence.

A club dining-room in Australia is much like one in any other part of the world. Even at the Antipodes⁠—though the seasons are reversed, and the foxes have wings⁠—we still shun the club bore, and let him have a table to himself; the head waiter usually looks a more important personage than any of the members or guests; and men may be seen giving each other dinners from much the same ignoble motives as those which actuate their fellows elsewhere. In the Cassowary Club, on the night of which we tell, the Bo’sun was giving his dinner of necessity to honour the draft of hospitality drawn on him by Grant. At the next table a young solicitor was entertaining his one wealthy client; near by a band of haggard University professors were dining a wandering scientist, all hair and spectacles⁠—both guest and hosts drinking mineral waters and such horrors; while beyond them a lot of racing men were swilling champagne and eating and talking as heartily as so many navvies. A few squatters, down from their stations, had foregathered at the centre table, where each was trying to make out that he had had less rain than the others. The Bo’sun and his guests were taken in hand by the head waiter, who formerly had been at a London Club, and was laying himself out to do his best; he had seen that Gillespie had “Wanderers’ Club” on his cards, and he knew, and thanked his stars that he did know, what “Wanderers’ Club” on a man’s card meant. His fellow-waiters, to whom he usually referred as “a lot of savages,” were unfortunately in ignorance of the social distinction implied by membership of such a club.

For a time there was nothing but the usual commonplace talk, while the soup and fish were disposed of; when they reached the champagne and the entrées, things become more homelike and conversation flowed. A bushman, especially when primed with champagne, is always ready to give his tongue a run⁠—and when he has two open-mouthed new chums for audience, as Gordon had, the only difficulty is to stop him before bedtime; for long silent rides on the plain, and lonely camps at night, give