Exactly at midnight,—the proper hour for ghosts; burglars, and bushrangers, and such "small deer" to be about, everybody was awakened simultaneously by a loud irregular knocking, which sounded with hollow reverberations all through the wooden house. "Bushrangers!" we all thought, every one of us; for although burglars may not usually knock at hall-doors in England, it is by no means uncommon for their bolder brethren to do so at the other end of the world. It is such a comfort to me now, looking back on that scene to remember that our stalwart cadet was as frightened as anybody. He stood six feet one in his stockings, and was a match for any two in the country side, and yet, I am happy to think, he was as bad as any one. As for me, to say that my heart became like water and my knees like soft wax, is to express in mild words my state of abject terror. There was no need to inquire what the maids thought, for smothered shrieks, louder and louder as each peal of knocks vibrated through the little house, proclaimed sufficiently their sentiments on the subject.
Dear me, how ridiculous it all must have been! In one corner of the ceiling of our bedroom was a little trap-door which opened into an attic adjoining that where the big cadet slept. Now whilst F—— was hurriedly taking down his double-barrelled gun from its bracket just below this aperture, and I held the candlestick with so shaky a hand that the extinguisher clattered like a castanet, this door was slowly lifted up, and a large white face, with dishevelled stubbly hair and wide-open blue eyes, looked down through the cobwebs, saying in a husky whisper, "Could you let me have a rifle, or any thing?" This was our gallant cadet, who had no idea of presenting himself at a disadvantage before the foe. I had desperately seized a revolver, but F—— declared that if I persisted in carrying it I certainly should go first, as he did not wish to be shot in the back.
We held a hurried council of war,—Mr. A—— assisting through the trap door, and the maids breathing suggestions through the partition-planks,—but the difficulty consisted in determining at which door the knocking was going on. Some said one, and some another (for there were many modes of egress from the tiny dwelling); but at last F—— cried decidedly, "We must try them all in succession," and shouldering his gun, with the revolver sticking in the girdle of his dressing-gown, sallied valiantly forth. I don't know what became of Mr. A——: I believe he took up a position with the rifle pointing downwards; the maids retreated beneath their blankets, and I (too frightened to stay behind) followed closely, armed with an Indian boar-spear. F—— flung the hall door wide open, and called out, "Who's there?" but no one answered. The silence was intense, and so was the cold; therefore we returned speedily indoors to consult. "It must be at the back door," I urged; adding, "that is the short cut down the valley, where bushrangers would be most likely to come." "Bushrangers, you silly child!" laughed F——. "It's most likely a belated swagger, or else somebody who is playing us a trick." However as he spoke a succession of fierce and loud knocks resounded through the whole house. "It must be at the kitchen door," F—— said. "Come along, and stand well behind me when I open the door."
But we never opened the door; for on our way through the kitchen, with its high-pitched and unceiled roof,—a very cavern for echoes,—we discovered the source of the noise, and of our fright. Within a large wooden packing-case lay a poor little lamb, and its dying throes had wakened us all up, as it kicked expiring kicks violently against the side of the box. It was my doing bringing it indoors, for I never could find it in my heart to leave a lamb out on the hills if we came across a dead ewe with her baby bleating desolately and running round her body. F—— always said, "You cannot rear a merino lamb indoors; the poor little thing will only die all the same in a day or two;" and then I am sorry to say he added in an unfeeling manner, "They are not worth much now," as if that could make any difference! I had brought this, as I had brought scores of others, home in my arms from a long distance off; fed it out of a baby's bottle, rubbed it dry, and put it to sleep in a warm bed of hay at the bottom of this very box. They had all died quietly, after a day or two, in spite of my devotion and nursing, but this little foundling kicked herself out of the world with as much noise as would have sufficed to summon a garrison to surrender. It is all very well to laugh at it now, but we were, five valiant souls in all, as thoroughly frightened at the time as we could well be.
The only real harm a swagger did me was to carry off one of my best maidservants as his wife, but as he had 300 pounds in the bank at Christchurch, and was only travelling about looking for work, and they have lived in great peace and prosperity ever since, I suppose I ought not to complain. This swagger was employed in deepening our well, and Mary was always going to see how he was getting on, so he used to make love to her, looking up from the bottom of a deep shaft, and shouting compliments to her from a depth of sixty feet. What really won her Irish heart, though, was his calmly putting a rival, a shepherd, into a water-butt. She could not resist that, so they were married, and are doing well.
Let no one despise swaggers. They are merely travelling workmen, and would pay for their lodging if it was the custom to do so. I am told that even now they are fast becoming things of the past; for one could not "swagger" by railroad, and most of our beautiful happy vallies will soon have a line of rails laid down throughout its green and peaceful length.
Chapter X: Changing servants.
To the eyes of an English housewife the title of this chapter must appear a very bad joke indeed, and the amusement what the immortal Mrs. Poyser would call "a poor tale." Far be it from me to make light of the misery of a tolerably good servant coming to you after three months' service, just as you were beginning to feel settled and comfortable, and announcing with a smile that she was going to be married; or, with a flood of tears, that she found it "lonesome." Either of these two contingencies was pretty sure to arise at least four times a year on a station.
At first I determined to do all I could to make their new home so attractive to my two handmaidens that they would not wish to leave it directly. In one of Wilkie Collins' books an upholsterer is represented as saying that if you want to domesticate a woman, you should surround her with bird's-eye maple and chintz. That must have been exactly my idea, for the two rooms which I prepared for my maidservants were small, indeed, yet exquisitely pretty. Of course I should not have been so foolish as to buy any of the unnecessary and dainty fittings with which they were decorated, but as all the furniture and belongings of an English house, a good deal larger than our station home, had been taken out to it, there were sundry toilet tables, etc., whose destination would have been a loft over the stable, if I had not used them for my maids.