“Better than your grandmother!” retorted Jim, to whom his own steed represented all that was perfection in horseflesh. “Better than your old crock, Bosun, if you like!” Which insult, Norah, who knew his private opinion of her pony, received with a tilted nose and otherwise unruffled calm.
“When do you think of riding him?” asked Mr. Linton.
“Oh, I’ll get on him this afternoon,” Jim answered. “It’s getting near lunch-time; and it won’t do him any harm to have another hour or so getting used to the feel of the leather, and the creak thereof—which is the part he dislikes. I’m not anxious to scare him by mounting him too soon. At present he is gradually realising that I’m a friendly beast; for a good while he was certain I meant to kill him.”
Mr. Linton nodded.
“Quite right—I don’t believe in hurrying a nervous young horse,” he said. “Scare him at first and he is apt to remain scared. I’m glad you’re taking him quietly. He will be up to my weight when he fills out, Jim, don’t you think?”
“Oh, easily,” Jim answered. “When we get back from England you’ll find him just about right; we’ll get Murty to keep him for his own use while we’re away. I don’t want him hacked about by any man who chooses; he is quite the best of this year’s lot.” He shook the reins very gently, and addressed the colt in friendly fashion. “Get on, old man.”
The chestnut broke into an uneasy jog, which his driver had some little difficulty in reducing to a sober walk. He went with sidling steps, hugging the fence as much as possible, as if longing for the space and freedom of the paddocks outside. The corners of the yard had been rounded off, so that he could not indulge his evident inclination to put himself as far as possible into one and dream of his lost youth. It was just a little hard on him—last week all he had known of life was the wild bush paddocks on the outer fringe of Billabong run, where there was good galloping ground for him and his mates on the rough plains, and deep belts of timber to shelter them from the hot noonday sun or the frosty nights of winter. Then had come a time of mad excitement. Men and dogs had invaded their peaceful solitudes, and the hills had echoed all day to shouts and barking and the clear cracks of stockwhips, that ran round the hills like a fusillade of rifle shots. It was all very alarming and disturbing. At first the young horses had been inclined to treat it as a joke, but they soon found that for them it had a more serious meaning, that gradually they were being surrounded and edged out of the timber to the open plain, that they had not even time to eat, and that the deepest recesses of the hills and creeks formed no secure hiding-place from their pursuers.
Then they grew afraid for the first time. They galloped hither and thither wildly, to the great annoyance of the men, who had no wish to see valuable young horses hurt or blemished by running into a tree or under a low-growing limb, in these wild rushes through the scrub. They tried to drive them as quietly as possible; but the horses thought they knew far too much for that, and before they were finally mustered there had been racing and chasing that had brought much secret and unlawful joy to Jim and Norah and Wally, but no little anxiety to the owner of the run. No great damage, however, had been done; gradually all the wild youngsters had been driven out of the timbered country, hustled through the gate that effectually barred them from such shelter in the future, and brought to the homestead through a succession of peaceful paddocks, peopled with sleek cattle almost too lazy to move aside for the drove of uneasy horses. The home paddock had received them at last; and then every day saw them driven up to the yards, where they were left for a few hours so that they might grow accustomed to being close to civilisation, and to the sound of the human voice. One by one they dropped out; a youngster would be edged away from his mates into a little yard, presently to find himself alone when the main mob was let out to go galloping down the hill to freedom. Then real education began; education that meant bit and bridle and saddle, and the knowledge that the strange new creature called Man was master and meant to remain so.
Jim had kept the chestnut colt for his own tuition. Mick Shanahan, chief horsebreaker of Billabong for many a year, had gone to the war; and though every man on the station had a settled conviction of his own ability to break horses, Jim and his father did not, in every instance, share the belief. The chestnut was too good to be given to any chance-comer to handle. Most of the youngsters were destined for use as stock-horses, and might as well be handed over to the men who were to ride them in their work; but not this well-bred baby “with the spirit of fire and of dew,” and with all his nerves jangling from the indignity of being made a prisoner. Jim had been carefully trained in Mick Shanahan’s methods; besides which, he had a natural comprehension of horses, and a rooted dislike of rough-and-ready ways of breaking-in. There was something in the strong gentleness of the big fellow that soothed a young horse unconsciously.
He pulled up the chestnut after a few turns round the yard, and proceeded, as he said, to talk to him, speaking in a low voice while he handled him quietly, stroking him all over. The colt, nervous for a moment, soon settled down under the gentle voice and hand; and so found the bit which he had champed indignantly all the morning, slipped out of his mouth, and an easy-fitting halter on his head. Then came Norah, at whom he was inclined to start back, until he remembered that he had met her twice before, that she also was a person who moved quietly and had an understanding touch, and that she always carried a milk-thistle—an article delicious at all times, but especially soothing to a tired mouth, hot and sore after even the broad, easy bit Jim always used. Norah said pleasant things to him and stroked his nose while he munched the cool, juicy thistle; and then he was led to a bucket, in itself a very alarming object, until he found that it held water which tasted just as good as creek water. After that he was tied up to the fence and left to his own reflections, while the humans who were causing him so much uneasiness of mind went away, apparently that they might seek milk-thistles on their own account.