‘What dates?’
‘Cash down! Do you think I’d take any man’s bills now? No, not if Levison himself were to endorse.’
‘Hem—ha—I learn the cattle are baddish, but the run is understocked. How long will you leave it open?’
‘Oh! a month; three months if you like. Send me a cheque at any time for six thousand and I will send you an order to take possession; that is, as soon as I find the cheque all right.’
‘Ha! ha! not bad, Croker. It would be the first cheque of Paul Frankston’s that ever was unpaid, so far. But you’ll not forget Thursday, all of you, boys. We must try and shake Croker out of the blues, or he’ll ruin the prospects of every squatter in New South Wales.’
Mr. Neuchamp’s spirits were not so permanently affected by the alarming vaticinations of Mr. Jermyn Croker as that he was prevented from exhibiting Osmund’s figure and paces past the club verandah that afternoon, followed by Mr. Windsor on Ben Bolt, on his way to keep tryst with Antonia.
There may be a pleasanter species of locomotion, on a fine day, than that afforded by a good horse in top condition over a smooth road, in the immediate vicinity of a valued lady friend; let us say there may be, but we have yet to discover it. The yacht, sweeping like a seamew over the rippling, gaily-breaking billow, with courses free and a merry company aboard, holds high excitement and joyous freedom from the world’s cankering cares; the mail-phaeton with a pair of well-bred steppers, or, better still, a high drag behind a fresh team, well matched and better-mouthed, has its own peculiar fascination as one is whirled through the summer air, or borne fast and free through the gathering twilight homewards and dinnerwards; even the smooth, irresponsible rush of the express train yields not wholly disagreeable sensation of a victory over time and space, as we whirl down the flying grades and round the somewhat risque curves. But the personal element which the rider shares with the bonny brown, or gallant grey, that strides with joyous elasticity beneath him, had a thrill, in the ‘brave old days of pleasure and pain,’ that dwarfed all other recreation. If anything can intensify the feeling of joyance, it is the presence, similarly equipped, of the possible princess. Then the fairy glamour is complete—in the forest glades are the leaflets hung with diamonds, the half-heard music is full of unearthly cadences—and as the graceful form sways with movement of her eager palfrey, the good knight’s head must be harder than his casque if heart and sword and fame, past, present, and to come, be not laid, then and there, at the feet of that ladye-fayre.
Miss Frankston rode, like most Australian girls, extremely well, and with an unconscious grace and security of seat only to be attained by those who, like her, had enjoyed the fullest opportunities of practice from earliest childhood. Her dark bay mare was thoroughbred, having been carried off by Mr. Frankston five minutes after she lost her first race at Randwick. She had been indifferently brought out, and, as a sporting friend said, was not fit to run for a saddle in a shearers’ sweepstakes.
Antonia had taken a strong fancy to her personal appearance, and Paul, as usual, had then and there gratified his pet. Waratah, which was the filly’s name, proving after trial high-couraged and temperate, had been installed at Morahmee as the description of dumb favourite for which, in the springtime of life, the heart of a woman is prone to crave.
On this particular afternoon it was proposed by Antonia that they should ride to Bondi. ‘One of our show places, you must know,’ she said; ‘and as the wind is coming in strong from the south, we shall have the surf-thunder in perfection.’