They watched the lowering skies, and groaned when the downpour slackened a moment, and yelled and cheered again when it increased and came sweeping in blinding sheets down the valley.
They flung off their wet boots and sat to tea, and listened to the water roaring on the iron roof, till they had to shout to make themselves heard; they kept jumping up to look out of the door, and came back grinning widely, with the assurance that it was coming down “Bonzer”; they hurried over their meal, and crowded out on the verandah to stand and watch the waterfall that cascaded down from the overflowed gutters.
Aleck Gault made them set his window wide as it would go, and haul his bed over beside it, so that he could lean over and stretch his hand out and feel the rain beat down on it. And he laughed when Steve swore at him for letting the water run down his arm and soak his shirt-sleeve, and threatened if they said much more to flop out of bed, leg and all, and crawl out into the rain.
Scottie caught his horse and rode down the hill track and out on to the plains, and came back with the water streaming from his hat and cloak, and told the men that “The flat was full o’ water as a wet sponge, an’ the billabong full an’ rinnin’ fast.” And the men cheered the news as men cheer a stubborn fight and gallant victory.
They cheered again when the roof sprang a leak and a stream of water began to trickle down on the table; they cheered Blazes arranging pails and kerosene tins to catch the flood; they shouted with laughter and cheered again when Darby the Bull, running across the yard, slipped and fell, and picked himself up covered with mud. They were bubbling over with joy and good-humour, and flung jokes, and bandied words, and shouted roaring laughter at the feebliest of fun and clumsiest of wit. And when Darby, saying that now he was dirty and half wet he might as well have the pleasure of getting properly wet, went out grinning and took his stand under a spouting water pipe, they shed their clothes and flung them into the hut, and ran down and stood in the downpour. They slapped one another’s naked backs and limbs, and came on the verandah and soaped themselves, and stood out in the rain and washed and lathered themselves, and held their arms wide and turned their faces to the sky, and let the clean, sweet water sluice their mother-naked limbs and bodies.
And when Whip Thompson and Jack Ever pranced round in imitation of a black fellows’ corroboree and war dance, or Cocky Smith waddled across the yard and flapped his crook’d elbows and qua-a-ack-uack-uack-ed, or Darby held his hand out and looked up at the sky, and solemnly said he believed he felt a spot of rain, while the water ran in streams from him, they guffawed in gales of laughter, and yelled in an ecstacy of mirth. It was all very foolish and very childish, of course, but—well, the rain had come, plentiful, drenching, drowning rain; and let them and their folly be judged only by those who have known the rain come after a dry spell in the outside country, for no others can.
They were children for the time being, it is true—happy, boisterous children—but a few clipped sentences and a mouthful of speech was enough to turn them to men again.
A horseman splashed up out of the rain, and was met by a torrent of chaff and rough witticisms. “Did they come?” he asked, without heeding their banter. “Did they get through?”
A hush dropped on them at his anxious words. “Who?” someone asked. “Did who get through?” The horseman groaned. “Then they didn’t,” he said. “Dolly Grey started out to drive Miss Ess over here in the buggy this afternoon.”
Scottie and Steve Knight had come running from the house when they saw the horseman, and they came in time to hear his words. “What’s the billabong like?” said Scottie, quickly. “And how did you get here?” asked Steve.