Part 25 (2/2)

But long before we had done with brumbies Cheon was announcing dinner in his own peculiar way.

”Din-ner! Mis-sus! Boss! All about!” he chanted, standing in the open doorway nearest to us; and as we responded to his call, he held the door of the dining-net and glided into the details of his menu: ”Veg-e-table Soooup!” he sang: ”Ro-oast Bee-ef! Pee-es! Bee-ens! Too-mar-toos!

Mar-row!” and listening, we felt Brown of the Bulls was being right royally welcomed with as many vegetables as were good for him. But the sweets shrank into a simple ”bakee custard!”

”This is what you might call style!” Mac and Brown of the Bulls declared, as Cheon waved them to seats with the air of an Emperor, and for two courses the dinner went forward according to its menu, but at the third course tinned peaches had usurped the place of the ”bakee custard.”

Every one looked surprised, but, being of the bush-folk, accepted peaches and cream without comment, until Cheon, seeing the surprise, and feeling an explanation was due--anyway to the missus--bent over her and whispered in a hoa.r.s.e aside. ”p.u.s.s.y cat been tuck-out custard.”

For a moment the bushmen bent over their plates, intent on peaches and cream; but there is a limit to even a bushman's dignity, and with a choking gulp Mac exploded, and Brown of the Bulls joining in with a roar dragged down the Maluka's self-control; and as Cheon reiterated: ”What name all about laugh, missus,” chuckled in sympathy himself. Brown of the Bulls pulled himself together for a moment, once more to a.s.sure us that he was ”Satisfied so far.”

But the day's entertainment was only just beginning for after comparing weights and heights, Mac, Jack, Dan and Brown of the Bulls, entered into a trial of strength, and a heavy rail having been brought down from the stackyard, the ”caber” was tossed before an enthusiastic company. The homestead thoroughfare was the arena and around it stood or sat the onlookers: the Quarters travellers, Happy d.i.c.k, some of the Line Party, the Maluka, the missus, and others, and as the caber pitched and tossed, Cheon came and went, cheering every throw l.u.s.tily with charming impartiality, beating up a frothy cake mixture the while, until, finally, the cakes being in the oven, he was drawn, with others, into the compet.i.tion.

A very jaunty, confident Cheon entered the lists, but a very surprised, chagrined Cheon retired in high dudgeon. ”What's 'er matter!” he said indignantly. ”Him too muchee heavy fellow. S'pose him little fellow me chuck him all right,” explaining a comical failure with even more comical explanations. Soon after the retirement of our crestfallen Cheon, hot cakes were served by a Cheon all rotundity and chuckles once more, but immediately afterwards, a snort of indignation riveted our attention on an exceedingly bristling, dignified Cheon, who was glaring across the enclosure at two of our neighbour's black-boys, one of whom was the bearer of a letter, and the other, of a long yellow vegetable-marrow.

Right up to the house verandah they came, and the letter was presented to the Maluka, and the marrow to the missus in the presence of Cheon's glare and an intense silence; for most of the bush-folk had heard of the cabbage insult. Cheon had seen to that.

”Hope you will wish me luck while enjoying my little gift,” said the letter, and mistaking its double meaning, I felt really vexed with our neighbour, and pa.s.sing the marrow to Cheon, reflected a little of his bristling dignity as I said: ”This is of no use to any one here, Cheon; you had better take it away ”; and as Cheon accepted it with a grateful look, those about the verandah, and those without the garden, waited expectantly.

But there was to be no unseemly rage this time. In dignified silence Cheon received the marrow--a sinuous yellow insult, and as the homestead waited he raised it above his head, and stalking majestically from us towards the finished part of the fence, flung it from him in contemptuous scorn, adding a satisfied snort as the marrow, striking the base of a fence post, burst asunder, and the next moment, after a flas.h.i.+ng swoop, he was grovelling under the wires, making frantic efforts to reach a baby bottle of whisky that had rolled from within the marrow away beyond the fence. ”Cognac!” he gasped, as he struggled, and then, as shouts greeted his speedy success, he sat up, adding comically: ”My word! Me close up smash him Cognac.” At the thought came his inevitable laughter, and as he leant against the fence post, surrounded by the shattered marrow, he sat hopelessly gurgling, and choking, and shaking, and hugging his bottle, the very picture of a dissolute old Baccha.n.a.lian. (Cheon would have excelled as a rapid change artist). And as Cheon gurgled, and spluttered, and shook, the homestead rocked with yells of delight, while Brown of the Bulls rolled and writhed in a canvas lounge, gasping between his shouts: ”Oh, chase him away, somebody; cover him up. Where did you catch him?”

Finally Cheon scrambled to his feet, and, perspiring and exhausted, presented the bottle to the Maluka. ”My word, me cross fellow!” he said weakly, and then, bubbling over again at the recollection, he chuckled: ”Close up smash him Cognac all right.” And at the sound of the chuckle Brown of the Bulls broke out afresh:

”Chase him away!” he yelled. ”You'll kill me between you! I never struck such a place! Is it a circus or a Wild West Show?”

Gravely the Maluka accepted the bottle, and with the same mock gravity answered Brown of the Bulls. ”It is neither, my man,” he said; ”neither a circus, nor a Wild West Show. This is the land the poets sing about, the land where dull despair is king.”

Brown of the Bulls naturally wished ”some of the poets were about now,”

and Dan, having joined the house party, found a fitting opportunity to air one of his pet grievances.

”I've never done wis.h.i.+ng some of them town chaps that write bush yarns 'ud come along and learn a thing or two,” he said. ”Most of 'em seem to think that when we're not on the drink we're whipping the cat or committing suicide.” Rarely had Dan any excuse to offer for those ”town chaps,” who, without troubling to learn ”a thing or two,” first, depict the bush as a pandemonium of drunken orgies, painted women, low revenge, remorse, and suicide; but being in a more magnanimous mood than usual, as the men-folk flocked towards the Quarters he waited behind to add, unconscious of any irony: ”Of course, seeing it's what they're used to in town, you can't expect 'em to know any better.”

Then in the Quarters ”Luck to our neighbour” was the toast--”luck,” and the hope that all his ventures might be as successfully carried through as his practical joke. After that the Maluka gravely proposed ”Cheon,”

and Cheon instantly became statuesque and dignified, to the further diversion of Brown of the Bulls--gravely accepting a thimbleful for himself, and, as gravely, drinking his own health, the Maluka just as gravely ”clinking gla.s.ses” with him. And from that day to this when Cheon wishes to place the Maluka on a fitting pedestal, he ends his long, long tale with a triumphant: ”Boss bin knock gla.s.s longa me one time.”

Happy d.i.c.k and Peter filled in time for the Quarters until sundown, when Cheon announced supper there with an inspired call of ”Cognac!” And then, as if to prove that we are not always on the drink, or ”whipping the cat, or committing suicide,” that we can love and live for others besides self, Neaves' mate came down from the little rise beyond the slip-rails, where he had spent his day carving a headstone out of a rough slab of wood that now stood at the head of our sick traveller's grave.

Not always on the drink, or whipping the cat, or committing suicide, but too often at the Parting of the Ways, for within another twelve hours the travellers, Happy d.i.c.k, the Line Party, Neaves' mate, Brown of the Bulls, and Mac, had all gone or were going their ways, leaving us to go ours--Brown back to hold his bulls at the Red Lilies until further showers should open up all roads, and Mac to ”pick up Tam.” But in the meantime Dan had become Showman of the Showers.

”See anything?” he asked, soon after sun-up, waving his hands towards the northern slip-rails, as we stood at the head of the thoroughfare speeding our parting guests; and then he drew attention to the faintest greenish tinge throughout the homestead enclosure--such a clean-washed-looking enclosure now.

”That's going to be gra.s.s soon,” he said, and, the sun coming out with renewed vigour after another shower, by midday he had gathered a handful of tiny blades half an inch in length with a chuckling ”What did I tell you?”

By the next midday, gra.s.s, inches tall, was rippling all around the homestead in the now prevalent northwest breeze, and Dan was preparing for a trip out-bush to see where the showers had fallen, and Mac and Tam coming in as he went out, Mac greeted us with a jocular: ”The flats get greener every year about the Elsey.”

”Indeed!” we said, and Mac, overcome with confusion, spluttered an apology: ”Oh, I say! Look here! I didn't mean to hit off at the missus, you know!” and then catching the twinkle in Tam's eyes, stopped short, and with a characteristic shrug ”reckoned he was making a fair mess of things.”

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