PAX IN BELLO
In happier circumstances the rabbiter's camp would have had less charm for Moya. Its strings of rabbit-skins would have offended two senses, and she would have objected openly to its nondescript dogs. The tent among the trees would never have struck Moya as a covetable asylum, while the rabbiter himself, on his haunches over the fire, could not have failed to impress her as a horrid old man and nothing else. He was certainly very ragged, and dirty, and hot; and he never said "sir," or "miss," or "glad to see you." Yet he could cook a chop to the fraction of a turn; and Moya could eat it off his own tin platter, and drink tea by the pint out of a battered pannikin, with no milk in it, but more brown sugar than enough. The tea, indeed, she went so far as to commend in perfectly sincere superlatives.
"Oh, the tea's not so dusty," said the rabbiter grimly; "it didn't ought to be at the price you charge for it in your store, mister! But the tea don't matter so much; it's the water's the thing; and what's the matter with the water in these here tanks, that you should go shifting all your sheep, Mr. Rigden?"
This was obviously Rigden's business, and Moya, pricking an involuntary ear, thought that he might have said so in as many words. But Rigden knew his type, and precisely when and in what measure to ignore its good-humoured effrontery.
"It's the sort of thing to do in time, or not at all," said he. "You catch me wait till my sheep begin to bog!"
"Bog!" cried the rabbiter. "Who said they were beginning to bog? I tell you there's tons of good water in this here tank; you come and look!"
And he made as if to lead the way to the long yellow lip of excavation that showed through the clump. But Rigden shook his head and smiled, under two scrutinies; and this time he did not say that he knew his own business best; but his manner betrayed no annoyance.
Moya, however, contrived to obtain a glimpse of the water as they rode away. It looked cool and plentiful in the slanting sunlight—a rippling parallelogram flecked with gold. There was very little mud about the margin.
"So it is quite an event, this mustering?"
The question had been carefully considered over a mile or so of lengthening shadows, with the cool hand of evening on their brows already. It was intended to lead up to another question, which, however, Rigden's reply was so fortunate as to defer.