“Uncommonly tough,” agreed the Hermit. “However, these things are the fortunes of war, and one has to put up with them, grin, and play the game. It’s surprising how much tougher things look if you once begin to grumble. I’ve had so much bad luck in the bush that I’ve really got quite used to it.”
“How’s that?” asked Harry.
“Why,” said the Hermit, “if it wasn’t one thing, it was mostly another. I beg your pardon, Miss Norah, let me help you over this log. I’ve had my tucker stolen again and again, several times by birds, twice by swaggies, and once by a couple of black fellows pilgrimaging through the bush I don’t know whither. They happened on my camp, and helped themselves; I reckoned myself very lucky that they only took food, though I’ve no doubt they would have taken more if I hadn’t arrived on the scene in the nick of time and scared them almost out of their wits.”
“How did you do that?” asked Norah; “tell us about it, Mr. Hermit!”
The Hermit smiled down at Norah’s eager face.
“Oh, that’s hardly a yarn, Miss Norah,” he said, his eyes twinkling in a way that made them look astonishingly young, despite his white hair and his wrinkles. “That was only a small happening, though it capped a day of bad luck. I had been busy in camp all the morning cooking, and had laid in quite a supply of tucker, for me. I’d cooked some wild duck, and roasted a hare, boiled a most splendid plum-duff and finally baked a big damper, and I can tell you I was patting myself on the back because I need not do any more cooking for nearly a week, unless it were fish—I’m not a cook by nature, and pretty often go hungry rather than prepare a meal.
“After dinner I thought I’d go down to the creek and try my luck—it was a perfect day for fishing, still and grey. So I dug some worms—and broke my spade in doing so—and started off.
“The promise of the day held good. I went to my favourite spot, and the fish just rushed me—the worms must have been very tempting, or else the fish larder was scantily supplied. At any rate, they bit splendidly, and soon I grew fastidious, and was picking out and throwing back any that weren’t quite large enough. I fished from the old log over the creek, and soon had a pile of fish, and grew tired of the sport. I was sleepy, too, through hanging over the fire all the morning. I kept on fishing mechanically, but it was little more than holding my bait in the water, and I began nodding and dozing, leaning back on the broad old log.
“I didn’t think I had really gone to sleep, though I suppose I must have done so, because I dreamed a kind of half-waking dream. In it I saw a snake that crept and crept nearer and nearer to me until I could see its wicked eyes gleaming, and though I tried to get away, I could not. It came on and on until it was quite near, and I was feeling highly uncomfortable in my dream. At last I made a great effort, flung out my hand towards a stick, and, with a yell, woke up, to realise that I had struck something cold, and clammy, and wet. What it was I couldn’t be certain for an instant, until I heard a dull splash, and then I knew. I had swept my whole string of fish into the water below!
“Oh, yes, I said things—who wouldn’t? I was too disgusted to fish any more, and the nightmare having thoroughly roused me, I gathered up my tackle and made tracks for home, feeling considerably annoyed with myself.