Part 55 (2/2)

”Oh!” said Alice, ”are you a soldier, Mr. Halbert?”

”I have that honour, Miss Brentwood. I am a lieutenant in the Bengal Horse Artillery.”

”That is delightful. I am a soldier's daughter, and Mr. Buckley here also, as you know, I suppose.”

”A soldier's daughter, is he?” said impudent Jim. ”A very fine girl too!”

Sam, and Jim too, had some disrespectful ideas about soldiers' riding qualities; Sam could not help saying,--

”I hope you will be careful with that mare, Mr. Halbert; I should not like a guest of ours to be damaged. She's a desperate brute,--I'm afraid of her myself.”

”I think I know the length of her ladys.h.i.+p's foot,” said Halbert, laughing good-naturedly.

As they were speaking, they were pa.s.sing through a narrow way in a wattle scrub. Suddenly a blundering kangaroo, with Rover in full chase, dashed right under the mare's nose and set her plunging furiously. She tried to wheel round, but, finding herself checked, reared up three or four times, and at last seemed to stand on her hind legs, almost overbalancing herself.

Halbert sat like a statue till he saw there was a real chance of her falling back on him; then he slipped his right foot quickly out of the stirrup, and stood with his left toe in the iron, balancing himself till she was quieter; then he once more threw his leg across the saddle, and regained his seat, laughing.

Jim clapped his hands; ”By Jove, Sam, we must get some of these army men to teach us to ride, after all!”

”We must do so,” said Sam. ”If that had been you or I, Jim, with our rough clumsy hands, we should have had the mare back atop of us.”

”Indeed,” said Alice, ”you are a splendid rider, Mr. Halbert: but don't suppose, from Mr. Buckley's account of himself, that he can't ride well; I a.s.sure you we are all very proud of him. He can sit some bucking horses which very few men will attempt to mount.”

”And that same bucking, Miss Brentwood,” said Halbert, ”is just what puzzles me utterly. I got on a bucking horse in Sydney the other day, and had an ignominious tumble in the sale-yard, to everybody's great amus.e.m.e.nt.”

”We must give one another lessons, then, Mr. Halbert,” said Sam;--”but I can see already, that you have a much finer hand than I.”

Soon after they got home, where the rest of the party were watching for them, wondering at their late absence. Halbert was introduced to the Major by the Doctor, who said, ”I deliver over to you a guest, a young conqueror from the Himalayas, and son of an old brother-warrior. If he now breaks his neck horse-riding, his death will not be at my door; I can now eat my dinner in peace.”

After dinner the three young ones, Sam, Alice, and Jim, gathered round the fire, leaving Halbert with the Major and the Captain talking military, and the Doctor looking over an abstruse mathematical calculation, with which Captain Brentwood was not altogether satisfied.

Alice and Sam sat in chairs side by side, like Christians, but Jim lay on the floor, between the two, like a blackfellow; they talked in a low voice about the stranger.

”I say,” said Jim, ”ain't he a handsome chap, and can't he ride? I dare say, he's a devil to fight too,--hear him tell how they pounded away at those Indians in that battle. I expect they'd have made a general of him before now, only he's too young. Dad says he's a very distinguished young officer. Alice, my dear, you should see the wound he's got, a great seam all down his side. I saw it when he was changing his s.h.i.+rt in my room before dinner.”

”Poor fellow!” said Alice; ”I like him very much. Don't you, Mr.

Buckley?”

”I like him exceedingly;--I hope he'll stop with us,” continued Jim.

”And I also,” said Sam, ”but what shall we do to-morrow?”

”Let's have a hunt,” said Jim. ”Halbert, have you ever been kangaroo hunting?”

”Never!--I want to go!”

”Well, we can have a capital hunt to-morrow: Sam has got his dog Fly here, and I'll take one of my best dogs, and we'll have a good run, I dare say.”

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