Robbery Under Arms - Rolf Boldrewood (most important books of all time .TXT) 📗

crammers. It’s an awful pity we can’t all square it, and get spliced this Christmas. Aileen would take George if she wasn’t a fool, as most women are. I’d like to bring Jeanie up here, and join George in the carrying business. It’s going to be a big thing, I can see. You might marry Gracey, and look after both places while we were away.”

“And how about Kate?”

“The devil take her! and then he’d have a bargain. I wish you’d never dropped across her, and that she wasn’t Jeanie’s sister,” blurts out Jim. “She’ll bring bad luck among us before she’s done, I feel, as sure as we’re standing here.”

“It’s all a toss up⁠—like our lives; married or lagged, bushwork or roadwork (in irons), free or bond. We can’t tell how it will be with us this day year.”

“I’ve half a mind to shoot myself,” says Jim, “and end it all. I would, too, only for mother and Aileen. What’s the use of life that isn’t life, but fear and misery, from one day’s end to another, and we only just grown up? It’s d⁠⸺⁠d hard that a chap’s brains don’t grow along with his legs and arms.”

We didn’t ride home till quite the evening. Grace would have us stay for tea; it was a pretty hot day, so there was no use riding in the sun. George saddled his horse, and he and Grace rode part of the way home with us. He’d got regular sunburnt like us, and, as he could ride a bit, like most natives, he looked better outside of a horse than on his own legs, being rather thickset and shortish; but his heart was in the right place, like his sister’s, and his head was screwed on right, too. I think more of old George now than I ever did before, and wish I’d had the sense to value his independent straight-ahead nature, and the track it led him, as he deserved.

Jim and I rode in front, with Gracey between us. She had on a neat habit and a better hat and gloves than Aileen, but nothing could ever give her the seat and hand and light, easy, graceful way with her in the saddle that our girl had. All the same she could ride and drive too, and as we rode side by side in the twilight, talking about the places I’d been to, and she wanting to know everything (Jim drew off a bit when the road got narrow), I felt what a fool I’d been to let things slide, and would have given my right hand to have been able to put them as they were three short years before.

At last we got to the Gap; it was the shortest halt from their home. George shook hands with Aileen, and turned back.

“We’ll come and see you next⁠—” he said.

“Christmas Eve!” said Aileen.

“Christmas Eve let it be,” says George.

“All right,” I said, holding Grace’s hand for a bit. And so we parted⁠—for how long, do you think?

XVI

When we got home it was pretty late, and the air was beginning to cool after the hot day. There was a low moon, and everything showed out clear, so that you could see the smallest branches of the trees on Nulla Mountain, where it stood like a dark cloud-bank against the western sky. There wasn’t the smallest breeze. The air was that still and quiet you could have heard anything stir in the grass, or almost a ’possum digging his claws into the smooth bark of the white gum trees. The curlews set up a cry from time to time; but they didn’t sound so queer and shrill as they mostly do at night. I don’t know how it was, but everything seemed quiet and pleasant and homelike, as if a chap might live a hundred years, if it was all like this, and keep growing better and happier every day. I remember all this so particular because it was the only time I’d felt like it for years, and I never had the same feeling afterwards⁠—nor likely to.

“Oh! what a happy day I’ve had,” Aileen said, on a sudden. Jim and I and her had been riding a long spell without speaking. “I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed myself so much; I’ve got quite out of the way of being happy lately, and hardly know the taste of it. How lovely it would be if you and Jim could always stay at home like this, and we could do our work happy and comfortable together, without separating, and all this deadly fear of something terrible happening, that’s never out of my mind. Oh! Dick, won’t you promise me to stop quiet and work steady at home, if you⁠—if you and Jim haven’t anything brought against you?”

She bent forward and looked into my face as she said this. I could see her eyes shine, and every word she said seemed to come straight from her heart. How sad and pitiful she looked, and we felt for a moment just as we did when we were boys, and she used to come and persuade us to go on with our work and not grieve mother, and run the risk of a licking from father when he came home.

Her mare, Lowan, was close alongside of my horse, stepping along at her fast tearing walk, throwing up her head and snorting every now and then, but Aileen sat in her saddle better than some people can sit in a chair; she held the rein and whip together and kept her hand on mine till I spoke.

“We’ll do all we can, Aileen dear, for you and poor mother, won’t we, Jim?” I felt soft and downhearted then, if ever I did. “But it’s too late⁠—too late! You’ll see us now and then; but we can’t stop at home quiet, nor work about here all the time as we used to do. That