We shot but few duck, but on our way home in the afternoon “Peter” and Gilfillan each got a fine plain turkey—shooting from the saddle—and almost as we reached the station slip-rails “Peter,” who had a wonderful eye, got a third just as it rose out of the long dry grass in the paddock.
And on the following day, when C———'s guests arrived (and after we had congratulated ourselves upon having plenty for them to eat), they produced from their buggies eleven turkeys, seven wood-duck, and a string of “squatter” pigeons!
“Thought we'd better bring you some fresh tucker, old man,” said one of them to C——-. “And we have brought you a case of Tennant's ale.” “The world is very beautiful,” said C———, stroking his grey beard, and speaking in solemn tones, “and this is a thirsty day. Come in, boys. We'll put the Tennant's in the water-barrels to cool.”
The first occasion on which I ever saw and caught one of the beautiful fish herein described as grayling was on a day many months previous to our former party camping on Scarr's Creek. We had camped on a creek running into the Herbert River, near the foot of a range of wild, jagged and distorted peaks and crags of granite. Then there were several other parties of prospectors camped near us, and, it being a Sunday, we were amusing ourselves in various ways. Some had gone shooting, others were washing clothes or bathing in the creek, and one of my mates (a Scotsman named Alick Longmuir) came fishing with me. Like Gilfillan, he was a quiet, somewhat taciturn man. He had been twenty-two years in Australia, sometimes mining, at others following his profession of surveyor. He had received his education in France and Germany, and not only spoke the languages of those countries fluently, but was well-read in their literature. Consequently we all stood in a certain awe of him as a man of parts; for besides being a scholar he was a splendid bushman and rider and had a great reputation as the best wrestler in Queensland. Even-tempered, good-natured and possessed of a fund of caustic humour, he was a great favourite with the diggers, and when he sometimes “broke loose” and went on a terrific “spree” (his only fault) he made matters remarkably lively, poured out his hard-earned money like water for a week or so—then stopped suddenly, pulled himself together in an extraordinary manner, and went about his work again as usual, with a face as solemn as that of an owl.
A little distance from the camp we made our way down through rugged, creeper-covered boulders to the creek, to a fairly open stretch of water which ran over its rocky bed into a series of small but deep pools. We baited our lines with small grey grasshoppers, and cast together.
“I wonder what we shall get here, Alick,” I began, and then came a tug and then the sweet, delightful thrill of a game fish making a run. There is nothing like it in all the world—the joy of it transcends the first kiss of young lovers.
I landed my fish—a gleaming shaft of mottled grey and silver with specks of iridescent blue on its head, back and sides, and as I grasped its quivering form and held it up to view my heart beat fast with delight.
“Ombre chevalier!” I murmured to myself.
Vanished the monotony of the Bush and the long, weary rides over the sun-baked plains and the sound of the pick and shovel on the gravel in the deep gullies amid the stark, desolate ranges, and I am standing in the doorway of a peaceful Mission House on a fair island in the far South Seas—standing with a string of fish in my hand, and before me dear old Père Grandseigne with his flowing beard of snowy white and his kindly blue eyes smiling into mine as he extends his brown sun-burnt hand.