First in the Field Part 54

"Hil dear, what is the matter?--mother?" For answer she threw her arms about her brother's neck, and sobbing out told him all.

"And Janet--fits of hysterics?"

"Yes; I don't understand her, Nic. Mother can't leave her. What shall you do?"

"Go in to them!" said Nic firmly; and giving his sister a push toward the house, he ran back to where the two men stood growling at each other and the horse impatiently stamping as it stood between them and tugged to get away.

"Here you, Brookes," cried Nic imperiously, "tell me how it happened."

"He was as nasty as nasty, because the blacks--" began old Sam.

"Silence!" roared Nic. "I did not speak to you." Old Sam started in amazement, for it seemed to be a strong man speaking, not a boy.

"Now you, Brookes."

Brookes told the same tale he had told Mr Dillon when he rode over to Wattles Station, embellis.h.i.+ng it with cuts--that is to say, showing his wounds.

"No chopper would make a place like that!" cried Nic fiercely. "I don't believe a word of it, you brute. It's a lie."

"So it is, Master Nic," cried Sam, showing his teeth. "He give it to the poor fellow brutal."

"Tell me, then--all you know. Quick, man, quick!"

"Oh, if father had been at home!" as soon as he had heard the old man's tale. Then s.n.a.t.c.hing the rein, he threw it over Sorrel's head, touched the beautiful little creature's sides and went off at a gallop.

"Who's that?" cried Janet, starting up wildly as the hoofs were heard beating on the turf.

"Nic!" cried her sister, running to the window to look out. "He has gone off at a gallop."

"Gone!" cried Mrs Braydon--"and at a time like this!"

"He has galloped off. I know: he has gone over to save that poor fellow."

Janet uttered a low sigh, and as Mrs Braydon turned to her wonderingly the poor girl fainted away.

Meanwhile, urged now as he had never been urged before, by voice and heel, Sorrel forgot his long morning's ride, and stretching out like a greyhound skimmed over the soft turf like a swallow in its flight.

Nic rode on with his heart a prey to varying emotions. He knew perfectly well that the convict's fate would be that of all unruly a.s.signed servants. He had heard it from old Sam again and again,--how that if Jack did not behave well, he was sent by his master to another station, where he would have so many dozen lashes of the cat-o'-nine-tails and be sent back; while another time Joe, who had behaved ill at that next station, was sent across to the first. So the masters avoided the administration of punishment to their own men, but punished those of their neighbours. It was the rough-and-ready custom in the early days of the colony, and common enough for small offences.

Where a convict servant's offence became a crime, he was returned to the prisons--marked.

To Nic, then, it was horrible that the man for whom he had gradually grown to feel a warm sense of friends.h.i.+p should suffer this horrible indignity. It would be, he felt, an outrage; for he was as fully convinced as if he had been present that Leather had been maddened by Brookes's ill usage until he struck him down.

The boy felt old as he galloped on in the direction of the Wattles Station. He had never been there, but he knew it lay some ten or a dozen miles away to the north, and he hoped to find it by riding on and on till he came upon flocks of sheep, and then going up some one or other of the eminences, and looking about till he caught sight of white buildings, which would be the place. This would come the easier from the fact that stations were built close to water, but high enough up to be beyond the reach of floods.

When he had gone three or four miles he began to repent not bringing Nibbler, who would, in all probability, have been there in his time, and consequently might take it for granted, when going in that direction, that his young master was aiming at this place. But in his excitement he had thought of nothing but getting over there; and faint, hungry and hot, he began now to find that he had done a foolish thing.

A chill ran through him at the idea of missing the place, and he was about to change his direction and ride up a hill to his left; when it suddenly struck him that after once starting he had done nothing in the way of guiding his horse, which kept right on in one direction, merely deviating to avoid great trees or patches of scrub.

Then he uttered a joyful cry, for gazing down he could see hoof marks faintly on the thick gra.s.s, and it dawned upon him that these were quite fresh, and the horse was following them as steadily as if going along a main road.

Elated by this he slackened the rein just sufficiently to feel the horse's mouth, and left it to itself. And then it galloped in its easy, swinging pace, with its rider leaning forward, heart-sick where the footprints were invisible, and exultant as he caught sight of them again and again, after feeling that all was over and the trail entirely lost.

"If I only were clever as one of the blacks," he thought. "Bungarolo, Rigar, or Damper would follow the faintest trail."

But their services were needless here. The sorrel nag had been to the Wattles more than once before its young master's time, and, besides, its natural instinct led it to gallop along where its fellows had been before.

Two great ostrich-like birds started up from right and left, and though he had not come across them before Nic knew that they must be emus; but he only glanced at them as they raced away, with the rapid motion of their legs making them almost as invisible as the spokes of a running wheel. Twice over, too, he saw a drove of kangaroos, which went flying over the bushes in their tremendous leaps; but they excited no interest now. He must get to the Wattles soon, or he would be too late.

It was a long ten miles--more probably twelve--and Nic's heart was low, for he seemed to have been riding three hours, and he began to fear that the horse would go on following tracks until rein was drawn, so he stopped; when all at once, as they turned a clump of magnificent gum trees standing alone upon a beautiful down, there below him, and not a mile away, was the place he sought--a group of buildings, with the sheep and cattle dotting the country as far as his eye could range.

And now he checked his horse's speed to a gentle canter, and thought of what he should do.

He knew that he would be most welcome as a stranger, much more so as Dr Braydon's son; so he rode straight up to the fence, leaped down, and hitched his rein over a post close to where several saddles rode upon a rail, and was going up to the door of the house, when Mr Dillon himself appeared, and came to meet him with a friendly nod.

"Dr Braydon's son, for a wager!" he cried.

"Yes," said Nic; and before he could say another word the big, bluff-looking squatter shouted:

"Hi, Belton! Come and rub down and feed Mr Braydon's nag. Now, my lad, come in. We're just going to have a meal, and you must be hungry after your ride."

Nic was hungry after his ride, which was a far longer one than Mr Dillon guessed, for the boy had had nothing since the morning, and the mention of food struck a responsive chord in his breast. But he had not come to visit, and, flus.h.i.+ng slightly, he spoke out at once, plunging boldly into the object of his coming, though he felt that the magistrate knew.

"Thank you, no, Mr Dillon," he said. "I have come over about our man."

"So I supposed," said Mr Dillon, smiling; "but we can talk as we eat."

"I can't at a time like this, sir," said Nic. "I've come for him, please, to take him back with me."

"Indeed!" said Mr Dillon, smiling. "Do you know all that happened?-- while you were out, I presume?"

"Yes, everything, sir, and how you were misinformed."

"Misinformed, was I?" said Mr Dillon pleasantly. "I think not."

"But you were, sir, indeed. I know both the men so well."

"I suppose so, my lad. Let me see, you have been in the colony quite a short time?"

"Yes; but I've seen a great deal of them," cried Nic, whose face burned with annoyance at the magistrate's look of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"And you are, of course, a good judge of convict servants?"

"I know nothing about any but our own men, sir. But I have heard everything, sir, and I am sure that our man Leather does not deserve to be punished. It would be unjust."

"You think so?"

"Yes, sir: I'm sure of it."

"And you want to take him back with you?"