“No need to wonder, my dear,” he said gently. “Take it from me, that’s an old man, and has seen and taken a many blows and not too many kisses—if there’s any good in the heart of a man or a woman, the kiss wipes out the blow, and is the sweeter for it.”
“But a blow to one’s heart, to one’s pride, to love,” she said, leaning forward and speaking breathlessly. “Can that be forgotten, or should one be ashamed to forget it?”
“We’re speaking in parables, my dear,” the boss said, “and that’s not always wise. Straight speech and a straight road are always good things, though they don’t often run between the hearts of an old man and a young maid—the worse for the maid, maybe. But here’s my last word on it. If ever your heart, and your pride, and your love and life are beaten down into the dust, they can be raised up and healed by a kiss, given and taken, on the lips.”
“Thank you,” she said, and that was all. But to herself she said bitterly, “He doesn’t know—he can’t know.”
There was one thing that, in her secret heart, Ess was thankful for—to the work that kept the men out on the hills. She saw little of Ned Gunliffe, and although she had told of her engagement to him, and some of the men had shyly congratulated her, she was glad to have them out of the reach of their well-meant words on the subject, or of the sly and homely jests they would offer, little guessing how they hurt her.
Scottie had heard something of the night ride she and Ned Gunliffe had taken, and although he said nothing to her, he did speak, and speak sharply, to Ned.
“Understand,” he said sternly. “I’ll have nae strayvagin’ the hills by night or by day wi’ station horses an’ station men; on no business and no excuse. A man here is paid tae wark, an’ every minute he can spare from sleepin’ or eatin’, an’ every ounce o’ energy an’ strength he’s got, belongs tae the station, an’ the sheep, an’ cattle that’s sair needin’ it. An’ if I hear o’ ony man ridin’ but where he’s bid, he gets his cheque an’ his walkin’ ticket that same day.”
And now, just when he could ill spare a rider, Scottie lost one of his boldest and best, and Aleck Gault was carried in to the Ridge from the hills with a broken leg.
He had been out with two other men—Dolly Grey, who had been brought up to the Ridge from the back paddocks, where now there were no sheep to ride boundary on, and Whip Thompson.
They were pushing back into the hills in search of some of the sheep that were constantly straying in the rough country, for all their efforts to shepherd them, and when they came to the Cupped Hands, a wide bowl-shaped depression with a series of ridges running up one side, exactly like the fingers of the hands, the three men separated. Aleck and Whip rode round one side of the cup each, so as to see down into the hollows that lay outside the “Hands,” while Dolly Grey rode straight through to pick up any sheep that might be hidden there, or between the finger ridges. He was half-way through when the two men on the edges heard him yell and saw him spur his horse to a gallop. They saw, too, the tawny streak that flashed over the ground and amongst the boulders, and it did not need Dolly Grey’s warning yell of “Dingo” to tell them what it was. They circled round the edges, riding hard to intercept the chase, and volleying cracks from their stockwhips to keep the dog from turning up over the sides and down into the broken country below.