“I can’t help it. I’m built that way. To think that I should have stood still to hear you insulted like that!”
“But you didn’t stand still.”
“Oh, yes, I did.”
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t bother about it. I wish you wouldn’t bother about yourself.”
“When I am bad I am horrid,” he said, with a wry smile, “and that’s now.”
“No, I tell you I like it. I never know where I’ve got you. That’s one reason why you’re so interesting.”
His face glowed, and he clasped her with his glance.
“How kind you are!” he said, softly. “How you make the best of one, even at one’s worst! But oh, how bitterly you make me wish that I were different!”
“I’m very glad that you’re not,” said Naomi; “everybody else is different.”
“But I would give my head to be like everybody else — to be hail-fellow with those men out at the shed, for instance. They wouldn’t have stood still this morning.”
“Wouldn’t you as soon be hail-fellow with me?” asked the girl, ignoring his last sentence.
“A million times sooner, of course! But surely you understand?”
“I think I do.”
“I know you do; you understand everything. I never knew anyone like you, never!”
“Then we’re quits,” said Naomi, as though the game were over. And she closed her eyes. But it was she who began it again; it always was.
“You have one great fault,” she said, maternally.
“I have a thousand and one.”
“There you are. You think too much about them. You take too much notice of yourself; that’s your great fault.”
“Yet I didn’t think I was conceited.”
“Not half enough. That’s just it. Yet you are egotistical.”
He looked terribly crestfallen. “I suppose I am,” he said, dolefully. “In fact, I am.”
“Then you’re not, so there!”
“Which do you mean?”
“I only said it to tease you. Do you suppose I’d have said such a thing if I’d really thought it?”
“I shouldn’t mind what you said. If you really do think me egotistical, pray say so frankly.”
“Of course I don’t think anything of the kind!”
“Is that the truth?”
“The real truth.”
(It was not.)
“If it’s egotistical to think absolutely nothing of yourself,” continued Naomi, “and to blame yourself and not other people for every little thing that goes wrong, then I should call you a twenty-two-carat egotist. But even then your aims and ambitions would be rather lofty for the billet.”
“They never seemed so to me,” he whispered, “until you sympathized with them.”
“Of course I sympathize,” said Naomi, laughing at him. It was necessary to laugh at him now and then. It kept him on his feet; this time it led him from the abstract to the concrete.
“If only I could make enough money to go home and study, to study even in London for one year,” murmured Engelhardt, as his eyes drifted out across the plains. “Then I should know whether my dreams ever were worth dreaming. But I have taken root out here, I am beginning to do well, better than ever I could have hoped. At our village in the old country I was glad enough to play the organ in church for twelve pounds a year. Down in Victoria they gave me fifty without a murmur, and I made a little more out of teaching. Oh! didn’t I tell you I started life out here as an organist? That’s how it was I was able to buy this business, and I am doing very well indeed. Two pounds for tuning a piano! They wouldn’t credit it in the old country.”
“The man before you used to charge three. A piano-tuner in the bush is an immensely welcome visitor, mind. I don’t think I should have lowered my terms at all, especially when you have no intention of doing this sort of thing all your days.”
“Ah, well, I shall never dare to throw it up.”
“Never’s not a word I like to hear you use, Mr. Engelhardt. Remember that you’ve only been out here three years, and that you are not yet twenty-six. You told me so yourself this morning.”
“It’s perfectly true,” said Engelhardt. “But there’s one’s mother to consider. I told you about her. I am beginning to send her so much money now. It would be frightful to give that up, just because there are tunes in my head now and then, and I can’t put them together in proper harmony.”
“I should say that your mother would rather have you than your money, Mr. Engelhardt.”
“Perhaps so, but not if I were on her hands composing things that nobody would publish.”
“That couldn’t be. You would succeed. Something tells me that you would. I see it in your face; I did this morning. I know nothing about music, yet I feel so certain about you. The very fact that you should have these ambitions when you are beginning to do well out here, that in itself is enough for me.”
He shook his head, without turning it to thank her by so much as a look. The girl was glad of that. Though he had so little confidence in himself, she knew that the dreams of which he had spoken more freely and more hopefully in the morning were thick upon him then, as he sat in the wicker chair and looked out over the plains, with parted lips and such wistful eyes that Naomi’s mind went to work at the promptings of the heart in her which he touched. It was a nimble, practical mind, and the warm heart beneath it was the home of noble impulses, which broke forth continually in kind words and generous acts. Naomi wore that heart upon her sweet frank face, it shone with a clear light out of the fearless eyes that were fixed now so long and so steadily upon the piano-tuner’s eager profile. She watched him while the shadow of the building grew broader and broader under his eyes, until all at once it lost its edges, and there were no more sunlit patches on the plain. Still he neither moved nor looked at her. At last she touched him on the arm. She was sitting on his right, and she laid her fingers lightly upon the splints and bandages which were her own handiwork.
“Well, Mr. Engelhardt?”
He started round, and she was smiling at him in the gloaming, with her sweet warm face closer to his than it had ever been before.
“I have been very rude,” he stammered.
“I am going to be much ruder.”
“Now you are laughing at me.”
“No, I am not. I was never farther from laughing in my life, for I fear that I shall offend you, though I do hope not.”
He saw that something was upon her mind.
“You couldn’t do it if you tried,” he said, simply.
“Then I want to know how much money you think you ought to have to go home to England with a clear conscience, and to give yourself heart and soul to music for a year certain? I am so inquisitive about it all.”
She was employing, indeed, and successfully, a tone of pure and indefensible curiosity. He thought for some moments before answering. Then he said, quite innocently:
“Five hundred pounds. That would leave me enough to come back and start all over again out here if I failed. I wouldn’t tackle it on less.”
“But you wouldn’t fail. I know nothing about it, but I have my instincts, and I see success in your face. I see it there! And I want to bet on you. I have more money than is good for any girl, and I want to back you for five hundred pounds.”
“It is very kind of you,” he said, “but you would lose your money.” He did not see her meaning. The southern night had set in all at once; he could not even see her strenuous eyes.
“How dense you are,” she said, softly, and with a little nervous laugh. “Can’t you see that I want to lend you the money?”
“To lend it to me!”
“Why not?”
“Five hundred pounds!”
“My dear young man, I’m ashamed to say that I should never feel it. It’s a sporting offer merely. Of course I’d charge interest — you’d dedicate all your nice songs to me. Why don’t you answer? I don’t like to see you in the bush, it isn’t
at all the place for you; and I do want to send you home to your mother. You might let me, for her sake. Have you lost your tongue?”
Her hand had remained upon the splints and bandages; indeed, she had forgotten that there was a living arm inside them, but now something trivial occurred that made her withdraw it, and also get up from her chair.
“Are you on, or are you not?”
“Oh, how can I thank you? What can I say?”
“Yes or no,” replied Naomi, promptly.
“No, then. I can’t — I can’t — —”
“Then don’t. Now not another word! No, there’s no offence on either side, unless it’s I that have offended you. It was great cheek of me, after all. Yes, it was! Well, then, if it wasn’t, will you have the goodness to lend me your ears on an entirely different matter?”
“Very well; with all my heart; yet if only I could ever thank you — —”
“If only you would be quiet and listen to me! How are the bruises behaving? That’s all I want to hear now.”
“The bruises? Oh, they’re all right; I’d quite forgotten I had any.”
“You can lean back without hurting?”
“Rather! If I put my weight on the left side it doesn’t hurt a bit.”
“Think you could stand seven miles in a buggy to-morrow morning?”
“Couldn’t I!”
“Then I thought of driving over to the shed in the morning; and you shall come with me if you’re good.”
For an instant he looked radiant. Then his face clouded over as he thought again of her goodness and his own ingratitude.
“Miss Pryse,” he began — and stuck — but his tone spoke volumes of remorse and self-abasement.
Evidently she was getting to know that tone, for she caught him up with a look of distinct displeasure.
“Only if you’re good, mind!” she told him, sharply. “Not on any account unless!”
And Engelhardt said no more.
CHAPTER VII THE RINGER OF THE SHED
A sweet breeze and a flawless sky rendered it an exquisite morning when Naomi and her piano-tuner took their seats behind the kind of pair which the girl loved best to handle. They were youngsters both, the one a filly as fresh as paint, the other a chestnut colt, better broken, perhaps, but sufficiently ready to be led astray. The very start was lively. Engelhardt found himself holding on with his only hand as if his life depended on it, instead of on the firm gloved fingers and the taut white-sleeved arm at his side. He looked from the pair of young ones to that arm and those fingers, and back again at the pair. They were pulling alarmingly, especially the filly. Engelhardt took an anxious look at the driver’s face. He was prepared to find it resolute but pale. He found it transfigured with the purest exultation. After all, this was the daughter of the man who had returned the bushranger’s fire with laughter as loud as his shots; she was her father’s child; and from this moment onward the piano-tuner felt it a new honor to be sitting at her side.
“How do you like it?” she found time to ask him when the worst seemed over.
“First-rate,” he replied.
“Not in a funk?”
“Not with you.”
“That’s a blessing. The filly needs watching — little demon! But she sha’n’t smash your other arm for you, Mr. Engelhardt, if I can prevent it. No screws loose, Sam, I hope?”
“Not if I knows it, miss!”
Sam Rowntree had jumped on behind to come as far as the first gate, to open it. Already they were there, and as Sam ran in front of the impatient pair the filly shied violently at a blue silk fly-veil which fluttered from his wide-awake.
“That nice youth is the dandy of the men’s hut,” explained Naomi, as they tore through the gates, leaving Sam and his fly-veil astern in a twinkling. “I daren’t say much to him, because he’s the only man the hut contains just at present. The rest spend most nights out at the shed, so I should be pretty badly off if I offended Sam. I wasn’t too pleased with the state of the buggy, as a matter of fact. It’s the old Shanghai my father used to fancy, and somehow it’s fallen on idle days; but it runs lighter than anything else we’ve got, and it’s sweetly swung. That’s why I chose it for this little trip of ours. You’ll find it like a feather-bed for your bruises and bones and things — if only Sam Rowntree used his screw-hammer properly. Feeling happy so far?”
Engelhardt declared that he had never been happier in his life. There was more truth in the assertion than Naomi suspected. She also was happy, but in a different way. A tight rein, an aching arm, a clear course across a five-mile paddock, and her beloved Riverina breeze between her teeth, would have made her happy at any time and in any circumstances. The piano-tuner’s company added no sensible zest to a performance which she thoroughly enjoyed for its own sake; but with him the exact opposite was the case. She was not thinking of him. He was thinking only of her. She had her young bloods to watch. His eyes spent half their time upon her grand strong hand and arm. Suddenly these gave a tug and a jerk, both together. But he was in too deep a dream either to see what was wrong or to understand his companion’s exclamation.
“He didn’t!” she had cried.
“Didn’t what?” said Engelhardt. “And who, Miss Pryse?”
“Sam Rowntree didn’t use his screw-hammer properly. Wretch! The near swingle-tree’s down and trailing.”
It took Engelhardt some moments to grasp exactly what she meant. Then he saw. The near swingle-tree was bumping along the ground at the filly’s heels, dragged by the traces. Already the filly had shown herself the one to shy as well as to pull, and it now appeared highly probable that she would give a further exhibition of her powers by kicking the Shanghai to matchwood. Luckily, the present pace was too fast for that. The filly had set the pace herself. The filly was keeping it up. As for the chestnut, it was contentedly playing second fiddle with traces drooping like festoons. Thus the buggy was practically being drawn by a single rein with the filly’s mouth at one end of it and Naomi’s hand at the other.
“Once let the bar tickle her hoofs, and she’ll hack us to smithereens,” said the latter, cheerfully. “We’ll euchre her yet by keeping this up!” And she took her whip and flogged the chestnut.
But this did not ease the strain on her left hand and arm, for the chestnut’s pace was nothing to the filly’s, so that even with the will he had not the power to tighten his traces and perform his part. Engelhardt saw the veins swelling in the section of wrist between the white sleeve and the dogskin glove. He reached across and tried to help her with his left hand; but she bade him sit quiet, or he would certainly tumble out and be run over; and with her command she sent a roar of laughter into his ear, though the veins were swelling on her forehead, too. Truly she was a chip of the old block, and the grain was as good as ever.
It came to an end at last.
“Hurray!” said Naomi. “I see the fence.”
Engelhardt saw it soon after, and in another minute the horses stood smoking, and the buggy panting on its delicate springs, before a six-bar gate which even the filly was disinclined to tackle just then.
“Do you think you can drive through with your one hand, and hold them tight on t’other side?” said Naomi. “Clap your foot on the break and try.”
He nodded and managed creditably; but before opening the gate Naomi made a temporary fixture of the swingle-tree by means of a strap; and this proved the last of their troubles. The shed was now plainly in sight, with its long regular roof, and at one end three huts parallel with it and with each other. To the left of the shed, as they drove up, Naomi pointed out the drafting yards. A dense yellow cloud overhung them like a lump of London fog.
“They’re drafting now,” said Naomi. “I expect Mr. Gilroy is drafting himself. If so, let’s hope he’s too busy to see us. It would be a pity, you know, to take him away from his work,” she added next instant; but Engelhardt was not deceived.
They drove down the length of the shed, which had small pens attached on either si
de, with a kind of port-hole opening into each. Out of these port-holes there kept issuing shorn sheep, which ran down little sloping boards, and thus filled the pens. At one of the latter Naomi pulled up. It contained twice as many sheep as any other pen, and a good half of them were cut and bleeding. The pens were all numbered, and this one was number nineteen.
“Bear that in mind,” said Naomi. “Nineteen!”
Engelhardt looked at her. Her face was flushed and her voice unusually quiet and hard. But she drove on without another word, save of general explanation.
“Each man has his pen,” she said, “and shears his sheep just inside those holes. Then the boss of the shed comes round with his note-book, counts out the pens, and enters the number of sheep to the number of each pen. If a shearer cuts his sheep about much, or leaves a lot of wool on, he just runs that man’s pen — doesn’t count ‘em at all. At least, he ought to. It seems he doesn’t always do it.”
Again her tone was a singular mixture of hard and soft.
“Mr. Gilroy is over the shed, isn’t he?” said Engelhardt, a little injudiciously.
“He is,” returned Naomi, and that was all.
They alighted from the buggy at the farther end of the shed, where huge doors stood open, showing a confused stack of wool-bales within, and Sanderson, the store-keeper, engaged in branding them with stencil and tar-brush. He took off his wide-awake to Naomi, and winked at the piano-tuner. The near-sighted youth was also there, and he came out to take charge of the pair, while Engelhardt entered the shed at Naomi’s skirts.
Beyond the bales was the machine which turned them out. Here the two wool-pressers were hard at work and streaming with perspiration. Naomi paused to see a bale pressed down and sewn up. Then she led her companion on to where the wool-pickers were busy at side tables, and the wool-sorter at another table which stood across the shed in a commanding position, with a long line of shearers at work to right and left, and an equally long pen full of unshorn sheep between them. The wool-sorter’s seemed the softest job in the shed. Boys brought him fleeces — perhaps a dozen a minute — flung them out upon the table, and rolled them up again into neat bundles swiftly tied with string. These bundles the wool-sorter merely tossed over his shoulder into one or other of the five or six bins at his back.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 40
