Part 43 (2/2)
”Haven't looked, Doctor.”
”Careless fellow,” he replied, ”you don't deserve to have one.”
”Never mind, sir, we have got you safe and snug out of the thunderstorm. It is going to be very heavy I think. I only hope we will have plenty of rain.”
”Not much doubt of it,” said he. ”Now, come into the verandah and let us watch the storm.”
We went and sat there; the highest peaks of the great cloud alps, lately brilliant red, were now cold silver grey, harshly defined against a faint crimson background, and we began to hear the thunder rolling and muttering. All else was deadly still and heavy.
”Mark the lightning!” said the Doctor; ”that which is before the rain-wall is white, and that behind violetcoloured. Here comes the thundergust.”
A fierce blast of wind came hurrying on, carrying a cloud of dust and leaves before it. It shook the four corners of the house and pa.s.sed away. And now it was a fearful sight to see the rain-spouts pouring from the black edge of the lower cloud as from a pitcher, nearly overhead, and lit up by a continuous blaze of lightning: another blast of wind, now a few drops, and in ten minutes you could barely distinguish the thunder above the rattle of the rain on the s.h.i.+ngles.
It warred and banged around us for an hour, so that we could hardly hear one another speak. At length the Doctor bawled,--
”We shall have a crack closer than any yet, you'll see; we always have one particular one;--our atmosphere is not restored to its balance yet,--there!”
The curtains were drawn, and yet, for an instant, the room was as bright as day. Simultaneously there came a crack and an explosion, so loud and terrifying, that, used as I was to such an event, I involuntarily jumped up from my seat.
”Are you all right here?” said the Doctor; and, running out into the kitchen, shouted, ”Any one hurt?”
The kitchen girl said that the lightning had run all down her back like cold water, and the housekeeper averred that she thought the thunder had taken the roof of the house off. So we soon perceived that nothing was the matter, and sat down again to our discourse, and our supper.
”Well,” began I, ”here's the rain come at last. In a fortnight there will be good gra.s.s again. We ought to start and get some store cattle.”
”But where?” replied James. ”We shall have to go a long way for them; everyone will be wanting the same thing now. We must push a long way north, and make a depot somewhere westward. Then we can pick them up by sixes and sevens at a time. When shall we go?”
”The sooner the better.”
”I think I will come with you,” said the Doctor. ”I have not been a journey for some time.”
”Your conversation, sir,” I said, ”will shorten the journey by one-half”--which was sincerely said.
Away we went northward, with the mountains on our left, leaving snow-streaked Kosciusko nearly behind us, till a great pa.s.s, through the granite walls, opened to the westward, up which we turned, Mount Murray towering up the south. Soon we were on the Murrumbidgee, sweeping from side to side of his mountain valley in broad curves, sometimes rus.h.i.+ng hoa.r.s.e, swollen by the late rains, under belts of high timber, and sometimes dividing broad meadows of rich gra.s.s, growing green once more under the invigorating hand of autumn. All nature had awakened from her deep summer sleep, the air was brisk and nimble, and seldom did three happier men ride on their way than James, the Doctor, and I.
Good Doctor! How he beguiled the way with his learning!--in ecstasies all the time, enjoying everything, animate or inanimate, as you or I would enjoy a new play or a new opera. How I envied him! He was like a man always reading a new and pleasant book. At first the stockmen rode behind, talking about beasts, and horses, and what not--often talking about nothing at all, but riding along utterly without thought, if such a thing could be. But soon I noticed they would draw up closer, and regard the Doctor with some sort of attention, till toward the evening of the second day, one of them, our old acquaintance, d.i.c.k, asked the Doctor a question, as to why, if I remember right, certain trees should grow in certain localities, and there only. The Doctor reined up alongside him directly, and in plain forcible language explained the matter: how that some plants required more of one sort of substance than another, and how they get it out of particular soils; and how, in the lapse of years, they had come to thrive best on the soil that suited them, and had got stunted and died out in other parts. ”See,”
said he, ”how the turkey holds to the plains, and the pheasant (lyrebird) to the scrub, because each one finds its food there. Trees cannot move; but by time, and by positively refusing to grow on unkindly soils, they arrange themselves in the localities which suit them best.”
So after this they rode with the Doctor always, both hearing him and asking him questions, and at last, won by his blunt kindliness, they grew to like and respect him in their way, even as we did.
So we fared on through bad weather and rough country, enjoying a journey which, but for him, would have been a mere trial of patience.
Northward ever, through forest and plain, over mountain and swamp, across sandstone, limestone, granite, and rich volcanic land, each marked distinctly by a varying vegetation. Sometimes we would camp out, but oftener managed to reach a station at night. We got well across the dry country between the Murrumbidgee and the Lachlan, now abounding with pools of water; and, having crossed the latter river, held on our course toward Croker's Range, which we skirted; and, after having been about a fortnight out, arrived at the lowest station on the Macquarrie late in the afternoon.
This was our present destination. The owner was a friend of ours, who gave us a hearty welcome, and, on our inquiries as to store cattle, thought that we might pick up a good mob of them from one station or another. ”We might,” said he, ”make a depot for them, as we collected them, on some unoccupied land down the river. It was poor country, but there was gra.s.s enough to keep them alive. He would show us a good place, in a fork, where it was impossible to cross on two sides, and where they would be easily kept together; that was, if we liked to risk it.”
”Risk what?” we asked.
”Blacks,” said he. ”They are mortal troublesome just now down the river. I thought we had quieted them, but they have been up to their old games lately, spearing cattle, and so on. I don't like, in fact, to go too far down there alone. I don't think they are Macquarrie blacks; I fancy they must have come up from the Darling, through the marshes.”
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