Part 47 (2/2)
”When you think of it,” I said, ”really think of it, you know, how wonderful it is!”
”Brentwood,” said the Major, ”has calculated by his mathematics that the progress of the species is forty-seven, decimal eight, more rapid than it was thirty-five years ago.”
”So I should be prepared to believe,” I said; ”where will it all end?
Will it be a grand universal republic, think you, in which war is unknown, and universal prosperity has banished crime? I may be too sanguine, but such a state of things is possible. This is a sight which makes a man look far into the future.”
”Prosperity,” said the Major, ”has not done much towards abolis.h.i.+ng crime in this town, at all events; and it would not take much to send all this back into its primeval state.”
”How so, Major?” said I; ”I see here the cradle of a new and mighty empire.”
”Two rattling good thumps of an earthquake,” said the Major, ”would pitch Melbourne into the middle of Port Phillip, and bury all the gold far beyond the reach even of the Ballarat deep-sinkers. Come down and dine with me at the club.”
Chapter XXVI
WHITE HEATHENS
Captain Brentwood went back to Garoopna next morning; but Frank Maberly kept to his resolution of going over to see Mary; and, soon after breakfast, they were all equipped ready to accompany him, standing in front of the door, waiting for the horses. Frank was remarking how handsome Mrs. Buckley looked in her hat and habit, when she turned and said to him,--
”My dear Dean, I suppose you never jump over five-barred gates now-a-days? Do you remember how you used to come over the white gate at the Vicarage? I suppose you are getting too dignified for any such thing?”
There was a three-railed fence dividing the lower end of the yard from the paddock. He rammed his hat on tight, and took it flying, with his black coattails fluttering like wings; and, coming back laughing, said,--
”There's a bit of the old Adam for you, Mrs. Buckley! Be careful how you defy me again.”
The sun was bright overhead, and the land in its full winter verdure, as they rode along the banks of the creek that led to Toonarbin. Frank Maberly was as humorous as ever, and many a merry laugh went ringing through the woodland solitudes, sending the watchman c.o.c.katoo screaming aloft to alarm the flock, or startling the brilliant thick-cl.u.s.tered lories (richest coloured of all parrots in the world), as they hung chattering on some silver-leaved acacia, bending with their weight the fragile boughs down towards the clear still water, lighting up the dark pool with strange, bright reflections of crimson and blue; startling, too, the feeding doe-kangaroo, who skipped slowly away, followed by her young one--so slowly that the watching travellers expected her to stop each moment, and could scarcely believe she was in full flight till she topped a low ridge and disappeared.
”That is a strange sight to a European, Mrs. Buckley,” said Frank; ”a real wild animal. It seems so strange to me, now, to think that I could go and shoot that beast, and account to no man for it. That is, you know, supposing I had a gun, and powder and shot, and, also, that the kangaroo would be fool enough to wait till I was near enough; which, you see, is presupposing a great deal. Are they easily approached?”
”Easily enough, on horseback,” said Sam, ”but very difficult to come near on foot, which is also the case with all wild animals and birds worth shooting in this country. A footman, you see, they all mistake for their hereditary enemy, the blackfellow; but, as yet, they have not come to distinguish a man on horseback from a four-footed beast. And, this seems to show that animals have their traditions like men.”
”Pray, Sam, are not these pretty beasts, these kangaroos, becoming extinct?”
”On sheep-runs, very nearly so. Sheep drive them off directly; but on cattle-runs, so far from becoming extinct, they are becoming so numerous as to be a nuisance; consuming a most valuable quant.i.ty of gra.s.s.”
”How can you account for that?”
”Very easily,” said Sam; ”their enemies are all removed. The settlers have poisoned, in well-settled districts, the native dogs and eagle-hawks, which formerly kept down their numbers. The blacks prefer the beef of the settlers to bad and hard-earned kangaroo venison; and, lastly, the settlers never go after them, but leave them to their own inventions. So that the kangaroo has better times of it than ever.”
”That is rather contrary to what one has heard, though,” said Frank.
”But Sam is right, Dean,” said the Major. ”People judge from seeing none of them on the plains, from which they have been driven by the sheep; but there are as many in the forest as ever.”
”The Emu, now,” said Frank, ”are they getting scarce?”
”They will soon be among the things of the past,” said the Major; ”and I am sorry for it, for they are a beautiful and harmless bird.”
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