Although the bushranger had been beaten off, he and his ticket-of-leave allies continued to harass Captain Daventry. They did it to such an extent—cruelly hamstringing and mutilating cattle and horses when they did not choose to take the trouble to steal them—that Captain Daventry soon found that he was losing money fast. Being a soldier, however, he thought it would be disgraceful to give in to such “a lot of vermin,” but Mrs. Daventry declared that she could not live any longer in constant fear of her own life and her husband’s. The Captain could face bushrangers, but he could not stand hysterics. The Kakadua was then “outside”—as the colonists used to call unsettled districts—but Mrs. Daventry was willing to go thither when she found that bushrangers did not think it worth their while to visit the district. The Captain took up some good land on both banks of the river, and there—soured by his experiences—he became the Tartar his son owned that he had been.
X.
PIONEERING.
When Sydney Lawson left home to take up new country for himself, there happened to be no tutor at Wonga-Wonga, and so Harry and Donald were allowed to go with the young squatter, both to keep them out of mischief and to enlarge their “colonial experience.” Besides, they would be of as much use as, at least, a man and a half. The boys were away for months, but they never grew tired of their long holiday, although they often had to work hard enough in it. It was the thought that they were doing real man’s work, and yet holiday-making at the same time, that made the holiday so jolly.
Just after sunrise one calm bright morning, the little expedition started—Sydney, Harry, Donald, and King Dick-a-Dick’s heir-apparent, “Prince Chummy,” on horseback, and in charge of a small mob of horses and another of cattle, and two old hands in charge of the bullock-dray that carried the baggage, stores, tools, nails, horseshoes, arms, ammunition, &c. “Jawing Jim” and “Handsome Bob” were the sobriquets by which these two old hands were known—both given on the lucus a non lucendo principle, since Jim scarcely ever opened his mouth, and Bob was nearly as black, and not nearly so good-looking, as Prince Chummy. Jim was a Staffordshire man, and Bob was a Cockney. They were both good bushmen, but they had both been sent out for burglary, and therefore they may seem to have been strange guards for the commissariat-waggon, though the spirit-cask had another cask outside it as a precaution against furtive tapping. But for one thing, they were pretty well under the eye of the rest of the party; and for another, each watched the other like duplicated Japanese officials. There was a long-standing rivalry between them. Each sneered at the other’s home exploits. When Jem did open his lips to any one except his bullocks, it was generally to launch some sarcasm at Bob, but in a tongue-fight he was rarely a match for the ugly Londoner, whose lonely bush life had not cured him of his Cockney glibness.
All the Wonga-Wonga-ites mustered to see the little party off—Mr. Lawson riding with it for a mile or two. There was a little confusion at starting. A young imported bull strolled up, angrily snuffing and pawing, as if jealous of the superior size of the bullocks; and just as they had begun to obey Jim’s very strong language and oft-cracked long whip, the little bull took a mean advantage, made a mad flank charge on the middle yoke, and threw the whole line into disorder. Thereupon Bob, who had made himself comfortable on the flour-sacks in the dray, began to chaff his comrade, in his own elegant style, on his clumsiness.
“Call yourself a bullock-driver?” Bob was saying, when an old shoe that Mrs. Jones had thrown after Harry hit Bob in the face.
He was going to abuse Mrs. Jones then, but Jim growled out,
“Doan’t get inta a scoat, lahd! It hit thee wheer tha ken’t be hoort,” and Handsome Bob had to subside into his flour-sack couch again, silenced for once.
With much cracking of whips, trampling of hoofs, clanking of chains, jingling of tin pots, grinding of wheels, and creaking of pole and yokes, the expedition at last fairly got under way. We watched it go down the rise, across the flat, and through the slip-panels that led into the bush beyond; and then, when we could see nothing but the dust above the tree-tops, Mrs. Lawson and Mrs. M‘Intyre, who was visiting at Wonga-Wonga, went into their bed-rooms—perhaps to pray for their boys’ safety.
I saw them start, but can only relate their adventures from what I heard of them when the boys came back.