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The Project Gutenberg eBook of
The Boy in the Bush
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Title: The Boy in the Bush
Author: Richard Rowe
Release date: March 7, 2018 [eBook #56693]
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY IN THE
BUSH ***
THE BOY IN THE BUSH.
“POOR CHUMMY BRISTLED LIKE A PORCUPINE” FRONTISPIECE.
—See page 189.
THE BOY IN THE BUSH:
A Tale of Australian Life.
By the late
RICHARD ROWE,
AUTHOR OF “ROUGHING IT,” “THE DESERTED SHIP,” “A HAVEN OF REST,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
ZWEEKER, FRASER, MAHONEY, AND DALZIEL.
London:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCLXXXV.
(All rights reserved.)
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Limited, London and Aylesbury.
CONTENTS.
Page
I. VENUS AND WARRIGAL 1
II. UP A SUNNY CREEK 20
III. THE CAVE OF THE RED HAND 38
IV. ABOUT SNAKES 51
V. LOST MAGGIE 65
VI. AN AUSTRALIAN DROUGHT 78
VII. AN AUSTRALIAN FLOOD 99
VIII. A BUSH GRAVE 121
IX. THE OLD CONVICT TIMES 139
X. PIONEERING 172
XI. PIGEON PARK 193
XII. A GOLD RUSH 213
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
“POOR CHUMMY BRISTLED LIKE A PORCUPINE” Frontisp
iece
“WARRIGAL WAS BAGGED HIMSELF” 18
“THE BLACK FELLOWS WERE IN A VERY SAVAGE
MOOD”
35
“ON THE ROCKY WALL A RED HAND” 40
“THE SNAKES’ CORROBBOREE” 62
“H.M. DICK-A-DICK, KING OF THE POSSUM TRIBE” 72
“THE RUSHING FIRE WAS NOW STEERING STRAIGHT
AT THEM”
92
“THEY FOUND THE FARMER CLINGING TO THE
CHIMNEY”
112
“A ROUGH WOODEN CROSS SHOWED THEM A BUSH
GRAVE”
126
“THE BLACKS RAISED A WILD HOWL AND FLED” 212
“MEN ON HORSEBACK WITH SADDLE-BAGS AND
PISTOLS”
216
1
I.
VENUS AND WARRIGAL.
“The impudent scoundrel! Just look at this, mamma. I
should like to see him at it,” exclaimed Sydney Lawson
in great wrath, as he handed his mother a very dirty
note which a shepherd had brought home. On coarse,
crumpled grocer’s paper these words were written in
pencil: “Master sidney i Want your Mare the chesnit with
the white starr soe You Send her to 3 Mile flat first thing
Tomorrer Or i Shall Have to cum an Fetch Her.—
Warrigal.”
“Sam says,” Sydney went on in rising rage, “that the 2
fellow had the cheek to give it him just down by the
slip-panels. He rode up to Sam and Paddy Fury as coolly
as if he was coming up to spend the night at the house.
If the great hulking fellows had a mite of pluck, they’d
have knocked him off his horse, instead of taking orders
from a chap like that. Paddy is fond enough of bragging
about his foightin’ when there’s nobody to fight. But
they’re like all the people about here; three parts of
them funk the bushrangers, and the rest are in league
with them. He may well call himself Warrigal, the
sneaking dingo! He wouldn’t have been game to talk
about sticking us up, if he hadn’t known father was
away. Send him my Venus! Mr. Warrigal must have gone
cranky.”
3
Sydney Lawson, who made this indignant speech at the
tea-table of the Wonga-Wonga station (and almost
made the hot potato-cake jump off the table with the
thumps he gave it), was a tall, slim lad of fourteen. He
and his mother had been left in charge of the station,
whilst his father took a mob of cattle overland to Port
Phillip. Sydney was very proud of having the key of the
store, counting in the sheep, peppering mangled calves
with strychnine to poison the native dogs that had
mangled them, and riding about all day cracking his
stock-whip, heading back store-bullocks that seemed
inclined to make a rush at him, looking after the men,
and when meat was wanted, driving the beast into the
stock-yard himself, and shooting it with his own gun.
Sydney thought himself a man now, and was very angry
that Warrigal should think he could be frightened “like a
baby.”
This Warrigal was a bushranger, who, with one or two 4
mates, wandered about in that part of New South
Wales, doing pretty much as he liked. They stopped the
mail, “bailed up” dray-men and horsemen on the road
by the two and three dozen together; “stuck up” solitary
stores, and publics, and stations, and once had been
saucy enough to stick up a whole township. The police
couldn’t get hold of them. Some people said that the
troopers were too lazy, and some that they were too
cowardly. The truth was that the troopers did not know
the bush like the bushrangers, and could not help
themselves, as they could, to fresh horses when the
ones they were riding were knocked up; and, besides,
the bushrangers had “bush telegraphs”—spies who let
them know where it was safe to rob, and did all they
could to put the troopers on false scents.
The note that Sydney had received caused a good deal
of excitement at the Wonga-Wonga tea-table. Miss
Smith, who helped Mrs. Lawson in the house, and
taught Sydney’s sisters and his brother Harry, had not
long come out from London, and was in a great fright.
“Oh, pray send him the horse, Master Sydney,” she
cried, “or we shall all be murdered in our beds. You’ve
got so many horses, one can’t make any difference.”
All the little Lawsons instantly turned on Miss Smith,
though she was their governess.
“I thought you English people were so brave,” said 5
satirical Miss Gertrude: “you make yourselves out to be
in your history-books.”
But Sydney, though Miss Smith had talked as if Venus
was just like any common horse, was very fond of Miss
Smith. She was pretty, and only five years older than
himself. Besides, he was acting master of the house,
and a little gentleman to boot. So he said,
“Be quiet, children; you ought to be ashamed of
yourselves. Miss Smith isn’t used to the colony.—Don’t
be alarmed, Miss Smith. I will see that you come to no
harm.”
And then he began to talk to his mother about what
they had better do. Just because he was a manly little
fellow, he was not ashamed to take his mother’s advice.
Now Mrs. Lawson was as little disposed as Sydney to let 6
Mr. Warrigal do as he liked. She knew that her husband
would have run the risk of being “stuck up,” if he had
been at home, rather than have obeyed the
bushranger’s orders, and that he would be very pleased
if they could manage to defy the rascal. Still, it was a
serious matter to provoke Messrs. Warrigal and Co. to
pay the house a visit. She felt sure that Sydney would
fight, and she meant to fire at the robbers herself if
they came; but would she and Sydney be able to stand
against three armed men? Not a shepherd or stockman
or horsebreaker about the place was to be depended
upon; and Ki Li, the Chinaman cook, though a very
good kind of fellow, would certainly go to bed in his hut
if the robbers came by day, and stay in bed if the
robbers came by night. John Jones, the “new chum”
ploughman, whose wife was Mrs. Lawson’s servant,
slept in the house, and he was too honest to band with
the bushrangers in any way; “but then, he’s such a
sheep, you know, mamma,” said Sydney.
There was time to send word to the police at Jerry’s 7
Town; but who was to go? Any of the men, except Ki Li
and John Jones, would be as likely as not to go to
Warrigal’s camping-place instead of to the Jerry’s Town
police-barracks; and Ki Li would be afraid to go out in
the dark, and John Jones would be afraid to ride
anything but one of the plough horses, and that only at
an amble. It wouldn’t do for Sydney to leave the place,
since he was the only male effective on it; so what was
to be done? But little Harry had heard his mother and
brother talking, and, as soon as he made out their
difficulty, he looked up and said,
“Why, mamma, I can go. Syd, lend me your stock-whip,
and let me have Guardsman.”
Neither mother nor brother had any fear about Harry’s 8
horsemanship (up-country Australian boys can ride
when they are not much bigger than monkeys), but
they scarcely liked to turn the little fellow out for a long
ride by night. However, he knew the way well enough.
Three-Mile Flat didn’t lie in his road, and if he didn’t fall
in with any of the Warrigal gang, nobody would harm
him; and, finally, there was no one else to go to Jerry’s
Town who would or could go in time.
So Sydney went to the stable and slipped the bridle on
Venus, and rode her down to the flat by the creek, to
drive up Guardsman. And then he put the saddle and
bridle on Guardsman and brought him round to the
garden-gate, where Harry stood flicking about Sydney’s
stock-whip very impatiently, whilst his mamma kissed
him and tied a comforter round his neck. Sydney gave
Harry a leg up, and cantered with him to the slip-panels,
to take them down for him.
As soon as he was through, Harry shouted “Good night,” 9
and gave Guardsman his head, and was off like a little
wild boy. After one or two failures, that made his face
tingle, he managed to crack Sydney’s stock-whip almost
as cleverly as Sydney could have done. It rang through
the still moonlight bush, and when Sydney lost sight of
him, Harry, tired of the monotony of flat riding, was
steering Guardsman stem on for a grey log that
glistened like frosted silver in the moonshine.
When Sydney had stabled Venus again, and—an
unusual precaution—turned the key in the rusty
padlock, and when he had given a look about the
outbuildings, it was time for him to go in to supper and
family prayers. He read the chapter, and Mrs. Lawson
read the prayers. She was a brave woman, but, with her
little girls about her, and her little boy away, she couldn’t
keep her voice from trembling a little when she said,
“Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord; and
by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and
dangers of this night.”
Then the girls kissed their mother and their brother, and 10
said “Good night;” and Miss Smith kissed Mrs. Lawson,
and said “Good night,” and said “Good night” to Sydney
without kissing him (though he looked as if he would
have liked her to); and John Jones and his wife said
“Good night, ma’am,” “Good night, sir,” just as if Sydney
had been a grown-up master, and went to bed to snore
like pigs, though they were dreadfully afraid of
bushrangers. Sydney went into his mother’s bed-room,
and looked at the blunderbuss that stood by the bed-
head (Mrs. Lawson had selected the blunderbuss as her
weapon, because she thought she “must be sure to hit
with that big thing”), and he showed her once more
how to pull the trigger. Then he bade her “Good night,”
and went through the house, snacking the windows and
fastening the shutters, though that was as unusual at
Wonga-Wonga as locking the stable-door. And then he
went along the verandah to his own little room at one
end, where he locked himself in, and drew the charge of
his gun and loaded it again, and looked at the chambers
of his revolver, and put the caps on, and laid it down on
a chair ready to his hand. When his preparations were
completed, he said his prayers, and tumbled into bed
with his clothes on, and slept like a top.
Harry wasn’t expected home until next day. He had 11
been told to sleep at the “Macquarie Arms,” in Jerry’s
Town, when he had left his message at the barracks,
and come home at his leisure in the morning. About
four miles from Wonga-Wonga, the dreariest part of the
road to Jerry’s Town—begins a two miles’ stretch of
dismal scrub. Harry put his heels into Guardsman’s sides
to make him go even faster than he was going when
they went into the scrub, and was pleased to hear a
horse’s hoofs coming towards him from the other end.
He thought it was a neighbour riding home to the next
station; but it was Warrigal. As soon as Harry pulled up
Guardsman to chat for a minute, Warrigal laid hold of
the bridle and pulled Harry on to the saddle before him.
“Let’s see, you’re one of the Wonga-Wonga kids, ain’t 12
you?” said the robber. “And where are you off to at this
time of night? Oh! oh! to fetch the traps, I guess; but
I’ll stop that little game.”
Just then Harry gave a coo-ey! He couldn’t give a very
loud one, for he was lying like a sack on the robber’s
horse; but it made Warrigal very savage. He put the
cold muzzle of a pistol against Harry’s face, and said,
“You screech again, youngster, and you won’t do it no
more.”
And then Warrigal took Harry and the horses into the
scrub, and gagged Harry with a bit of iron he took out
of his pocket, and bailed him up to a crooked old
honeysuckle tree, with a long piece of rope he carried in
his saddle-bags.
“Don’t frighten yourself; I’ll tell your Mar where you are,
and you’ll be back by breakfast,” said Warrigal, as he
got on Guardsman, driving his own tired horse before
him.
It wasn’t pleasant for a little boy to be tied tight to an 13
ugly old tree in that lonely place, and to hear the
curlews wailing just as the bushrangers call to one
another, and the laughing jackasses hooting before
daylight, as if they were making fun of him. But what
vexed brave little Harry most was that he hadn’t been
able to get to the police.
Next morning, just as day was breaking, Warrigal and 14
his two mates, with crape masks on, rode up to Wonga-
Wonga. I don’t know which were the bigger cowards,
those three great fellows going to bully a lady and a
boy, or the half-dozen and more of great fellows about
the place who they knew would let them do it. They
made as little noise as they could, but the dogs began
to bark, and woke Sydney. When he woke, however,
Warrigal had got his little window open, and was
covering him with his pistol. Sydney put out his hand for
his revolver, and though Warrigal shouted, “Throw up
your hands, boy, or I’ll shoot you through the head,” he
jumped out of bed and fired. He missed Warrigal, and
Warrigal missed him, but Warrigal’s bullet knocked
Sydney’s revolver out of his hand, and one of Warrigal’s
mates made a butt at the bedroom door and smashed
it, and he and Warrigal (were they not heroes?) rushed
into the room, and threw Sydney down on the bed, and
pinioned his arms with a sheet. The other bushranger
was watching the horses. By this time the whole station
was aroused. The men peeped out of their huts, half
frightened and half amused; not one of them came near
the house. John Jones and his wife piled their boxes
against their room-door, and then crept under the bed.
Miss Smith went into hysterics, and Gertrude and her
sisters couldn’t help looking as white as their night-
dresses, though they tried hard to show Miss Smith how
much braver native girls were than English, even if they
did not know so much French, and Use of the Globes,
and Mangnall’s Questions. Mrs. Lawson had fired off her
blunderbuss, but it had only broken two panes of the
parlour-window, and riddled the verandah-posts; so
Wonga-Wonga was at the bushrangers’ mercy.
They ransacked the house, and took possession of any 15
little plate and jewellery and other portable property
they could find. When the robbers had packed up what
they called the “swag,” and put it on one of their horses,
they pulled Ki Li out of bed, and made him light a fire,
and cook some chops, and boil some tea. (In the
Australian bush the hot water isn’t poured on the tea,
but the leaves are boiled in the pot.) Then they marched
Mrs. Lawson, and Miss Smith, and Sydney, and his
sisters, and Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and Ki Li, into the
keeping-room, and sat down to breakfast, with pistols in
their belts, and pistols laid, like knives and forks, on the
table. The bushrangers tried to be funny, and pressed
Mrs. Lawson and the other ladies to make themselves at
home and take a good meal. One of the robbers was
going to kiss Miss Smith, but Sydney, pinioned as he
was, ran at him, and butted him like a ram. He was
going to strike Sydney, but Gertrude ran between them,
calling out, “Oh, you great coward!” and Warrigal felt
ashamed, and told the man to sit down.
“We call him Politeful Bill,” Warrigal remarked in 16
apology; “but he ain’t much used to ladies’ serciety.”
When breakfast was over, Warrigal asked Sydney where
the mare was.
“Find her yourself,” said Sydney.
“Well, there won’t be much trouble about that,”
answered Warrigal. “She’s in the stable, I know, and
you’ve locked her in, for I tried the door. I suppose
you’re too game to give up the key, my young fighting-
cock? You’re game and no mistake, Master Cornstalk,
and I’m a native, too.”
“More shame for you,” said Sydney.
“That be blowed,” went on Warrigal; “and since you’re 17
so sarcy, Master Sydney, you shall come and see me
take your mare. You might as well ha’ sent her instead
of sending for the traps, and then I shouldn’t ha’ got the
bay horse too”—and he pointed to Guardsman hung up
on the verandah.
There was no time to ask what had become of Harry.
Warrigal hurried Sydney by the collar to the stable,
whilst the other men mounted their horses, and
unhooked Guardsman to be ready for their captain.
Warrigal blew off the padlock with his pistol, but Venus
was fractious, and wouldn’t let him put on her halter.
Whilst he was dodging about in the stable with her,
Sydney heard hoofs in the distance. Nearer and nearer
came the tan-ta-ta-tan-ta-ta-tan-ta-ta. Four bluecoats
galloped up to the slip-panels—three troopers and a
sergeant; the sergeant with Harry on his saddlebow. In
a second Harry was down, and in three seconds the
slip-panels were down too. Up the rocky rise came the
troopers as if they were riding a steeple-chase. The
waiting bushrangers saw the morning sun gleaming on
their carbines as the police dashed between the aloes
and the prickly pears, and, letting Guardsman go, were
off like a shot. Sydney banged to the stable-door, and,
setting his back against it, shouted for help. His mother
and Gertrude, and even John Jones, as the police were
close at hand, rushed to his aid; and up galloped the
troopers. Instead of bagging Venus, Warrigal was
bagged himself. He fired a bullet or two through the
door, and talked very big about not being taken alive;
but he thought better of it, and in an hour’s time he was
jogging off to Jerry’s Town with handcuffs on and his
legs tied under his horse’s belly.
“WARRIGAL WAS BAGGED HIMSELF.”
If Warrigal had not bailed up little Harry, most likely he 18
would not have been taken; for when Harry had got to
Jerry’s Town, he would have found all the troopers away
except one. In the scrub, however, Harry heard the
sergeant and his men returning from a wild-goose chase
they had been sent on by the bush telegraphs, and
managing at last to spit the gag out of his mouth, he
had given a great co-oo-oo-oo-oo-ey!
After that night Miss Smith always called Sydney Mr. 19
Sydney, and Sydney let Harry ride Venus as often as he
liked.
20
II.
UP A SUNNY CREEK.
Soon after his adventures with Warrigal, Harry Lawson
had a tutor to teach him instead of Miss Smith, and
when Harry was twelve, his cousin, Donald M‘Intyre,
who was about his own age, came to live at Wonga-
Wonga to share the tutor’s instructions. Harry
considered this a very jolly arrangement. Like most
Australian boys, he was a very quick little fellow, but he
was inclined to be rather lazy over his lessons; and
Donald helped him in his Latin and French exercises,
and made his sums come right for him, and yet was just
as ready for a spree out of school as Harry was. Donald,
too, had been born in the colony, and so the two boys
got on famously together.
One Christmas the tutor had gone down to spend his 21
holidays in Sydney, and Harry and Donald could do just
as they liked. The papers were full of some traces of
Leichhardt, the brave Australian explorer, that had
recently been discovered, and the boys, of course, had
read “Robinson Crusoe” also; and so they resolved to
set out on a secret exploring expedition. They
determined to go by water, because that would be both
more like Robinson Crusoe, and more of a change for
them. They were very fond of riding, but still they were
as used to riding as English boys are to playing at “foot
it,” and they had been only once or twice in the “cot”
which a North of Ireland man, who had come to the
station as a bush carpenter, had finished the week
before, that the station people might be able to cross
the creek in time of flood, when no horse could swim it
or ford it.
One broiling December day—there is no frost or snow, 22
you know, in Australia at Christmas-time—Harry and
Donald slipped down to the cot directly after breakfast.
They had a gun with them, and caps, and powder, and
shot, and colonial matches in brown paper boxes, and
some tea, and sugar, and flour, and three parts of a
huge damper (that’s a great flat round cake of bread
without any yeast in it), and a box of sardines and a can
of preserved salmon, that Sydney had given them out of
the store, and some salt, and two pannikins, and a Jack
Shea (that’s a great pot) to boil their tea in, and a
blanket to cover them by night, and to hoist now and
then as a sail by day. The cot had no mast, but they
meant to use one of the oars for that, and they had cut
a tea-tree pole to serve for a yard.
They were going up the creek, not down. They knew 23
that the creek ran into the Kakadua at Jerry’s Town that
way, and, of course, as explorers, they wanted to go
where they had not been before. So they shipped their
stores, and untied the painter—it was twisted round an
old gum tree on the creek-side—and pushed off from
the bank, and began to try to pull up stream. But they
could not row nearly so well as they could ride, and at
first they made the cot spin round like a cockchafer on a
pin. They were sharp little fellows, however, and soon
got under way, only catching crabs when they tried to
feather.
By the time they got abreast of Three-Mile Flat, though, 24
their arms ached; and Harry stopped pulling, as he
made out, to tell Donald again about Warrigal, and
Donald stopped pulling, as he made out, to listen to
Harry, although he knew the story by heart. Then they
gave a spurt, and then they stopped pulling again, and
hoisted their blanket on one oar, and tried to steer with
the other; but it was a long time before they could
manage this properly. The sail was for ever flapping
against the mast—taken aback, as the sailors say—or
else the cot was poking her nose into the tea-tree scrub
on one side of the creek or the other, as if she wanted
to get out of the hot sunlight into the moist shade. Still,
it would have been very pleasant, if there had not been
quite so many mosquitoes; but they hummed over the
water in restless clouds like fountain-spray. However
there were native vines, with grapes like yellow
currants, twining round the lanky tea trees and lacing
them together; and the bell-birds kept on dropping
down into the scrub, and flying up into the gum trees,
and calling ting-ting, ting-ting. It sounded like a dinner-
bell, and the boys determined to take an early dinner.
They ate up almost all their damper, and all their
sardines, and picked their dessert off the wild vines.
On they went again; but they had not gone far before 25
they came to what is called in Australia a “chain of
ponds.” The creek had partly dried up, and they had to
pull and push the cot from one pond to another. This
was hard work, and not very pleasant work either, for
the sand-flies got into the corners of their eyes as if
they wanted to give them the blight, and the leeches
crawled up their trousers and turned their white socks
red with blood. Their heads throbbed so that they could
hardly bear to hear the locusts—thousands of them—
clattering on the trees like iron-ship wrights hammering,
and they felt quite angry when the long-tailed, brown
coach-whip bird flew by, making a noise just like a
slavedriver cracking his lash. At last, however, they got
into clear water again—clear except for the grey snags
and sawyers—and paddled lazily along; listening to the
twittering wood-swallows as they dipped their blue
wings into the water, and the great, black, sharp-winged
swifts screaming for joy as they tacked high overhead.
Harry and Donald could not help wishing that the cot
(which they had christened the Endeavour, in honour of
Captain Cook) would dart along of herself like the
swifts.
It had taken such a time to get her through the chain of 26
ponds, that evening was coming on. Great flocks of
cockatoos were circling round their roosting-trees like
English rooks, and parrots and lories—their fine green,
and red, and blue, and yellow feathers beginning to look
very dull and ragged, because moulting-time was near—
were taking their evening bath in the shallow water by
the banks, splashing it over their heads and wings, and
chattering as if they were saying, “Isn’t this prime fun?”
Presently the cockatoos lighted on the dark trees, and
made them look as if a hundred or two of ladies’
pocket-handkerchiefs had been hung out to dry on
them, and then the boys thought it was time to find a
roosting-place themselves. They pushed the cot into a
little bay in the bank, and fastened her to an old black
stump, and then they scooped a hole in the ground for
a fireplace, and gathered sticks, and lighted a fire. But
when they were going to cook their supper, they found
that they had lost their flour, and that their sugar-bag
had got so wet that there was only a little sweet mud
left in it. But that did not matter nearly so much as the
loss of the flour. They boiled their tea, and sweetened it
with the mud, and after a good deal of trouble they got
the salmon-tin open. Harry, who was very hungry, was
for finishing the salmon and what was left of the
damper; but Donald said,
“No; we must go on allowance now—we’ll keep half for 27
to-morrow’s breakfast, because, perhaps, we shan’t be
able to shoot anything to-night—that’s how explorers
manage.”
When supper was over, the moon had risen, and the
boys went down with their gun to the creek to see if
they could shoot a duck. The dark water was plated in
patches with ribbed and circling silver, and, just in the
middle of one of the patches, up came a black
something like a bottle.
“Hush! it’s a water-mole,” whispered Harry; but before 28
he could point his gun at it the queer duck-billed thing
had gone under again. The boys found no ducks, and
did not go very far to look for them. They were tired,
and had had their supper, and were sure of a breakfast.
So they soon went back to their fire, piled more sticks
on it, and then, snuggling under their blanket, fell
asleep. They said their prayers before they fell asleep
beneath the bright moon and stars, and, as they said
them, they thought for the first time that they had not
done quite right in leaving Wonga-Wonga without letting
any one there know that they were going.
When they woke in the morning, the sun was up, and 29
the glossy magpies were hopping about the logs, and
everything looked cheerful. The boys took a dip in the
creek, and boiled their tea, and had their breakfast, and
then away they went again in high spirits, although now
they had no food except what they might shoot or
catch. The kingfishers in their blue coats and yellow
waistcoats were darting backwards and forwards over
the water, and the fussy little sedge-warblers were
dodging about the reeds, and twittering a little bit of
every bird’s song they could think of; but they weren’t
worth powder and shot. By noon—they could tell the
time pretty well by the sun—both Harry and Donald felt
very hungry, for they had had a very early breakfast.
They began to wish that they had saved some of the
salmon for their dinner; but just then the Endeavour
was gliding between banks that had no tree or scrub,
but only tufts of dry coarse grass on them, and Donald
saw a bandicoot run out of one of the tufts. Up went
the gun to his shoulder, and in a second Mr. Bandicoot
had rolled over dead upon his back. A bandicoot is a
very big brown kind of rat—nicer to eat than any rabbit.
The boys soon made a fire, and baked the bandicoot in
the ashes, in his skin; and they relished him ten times
more than the preserved salmon. Rat, and tea without
sugar or milk, may not seem a very inviting bill of fare,
but you know the Delectus says that hunger is the best
sauce, and, besides, baked bandicoot anybody might
like.
Harry and Donald had some more shooting that day. 30
About a mile from the place where they had taken their
dinner they found a break in the creek-bank, filled up
with tall rusty bulrushes. They got out of the cot, and
pushed their way through the rushes, looking out very
carefully for snakes, and sometimes sinking into the
slush below the baked upper earth, just as if their feet
had gone through a pie-crust, and on the other side
they found a lagoon full of water-fowl. Then they forced
the Endeavour through the rushes—she made a great
black steaming furrow in the yellow ground—and
launched her down the dry border of the lagoon, and
pulled about in her, popping away in turns, and fancying
themselves in Fairy Land. There were two or three black
swans cruising proudly backwards and forwards, and
fleets of piebald geese, and grey geese, and sooty
ducks, and silvery ducks, and chestnut ducks with
emerald necks, and musk ducks with double chins, and
all their bodies under water. It was very funny to see
their heads and necks moving about, as if they had lost
their bodies and were looking for them. There were
coots, too, on the banks of the lagoon, and purple
herons and white herons holding up one leg as if they
were trying how long they could do it for a wager; and
ibises with untidy tufts of feathers on their breasts, that
looked like costermongers’ dirty cravats dangling out of
their waistcoats, and native companions, great light blue
cranes lifting their long legs out of the mud, and
trumpeting “Look out!” to one another, when the
Endeavour was coming their way. There were beautiful
water-lilies on the lagoon, also, with broad round leaves
like shields of malachite, and great blossoms of
alabaster, and blue and rose-coloured china. The boys,
however, were too busy with the water-fowl to look at
the water-flowers. They kept on popping away until the
moon had been up for some time, and the bitterns were
booming in the swamps all round, and the nankeen
cranes were stalking about, nodding their white crest-
plumes like Life Guardsmen, and croaking, “Now we’ll
make a night of it.”
When Harry and Donald left off shooting, they found 32
that they had fired away all their powder and shot
except two charges, and that they had got three little
ducks. They made a very merry supper off one, baking
it on the lagoon bank, as they had baked the bandicoot,
and then they went to sleep by their fire. Early in the
morning, just as the laughing jackass was hooting
before daybreak, Donald woke. The moon had gone
down, and so had the fire, and Donald, though it was
summer, felt very chilly.
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