The Boy in the Bush

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THE BOY IN THE BUSH.

THE BOY IN THE BUSH: A Tale of Australian Life.

By the late RICHARD ROWE, AUTHOR OF "ROUGHING IT," "THE DESERTED SHIP," "A HAVEN OF REST," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY ZWEEKER, FRASER, MAHONEY, AND DALZIEL.

London: HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXXXV. (All rights reserved.)

Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Limited, London and Aylesbury.

CONTENTS.

Page I. VENUS AND WARRIGAL 1 II. UP A SUNNY CREEK 20 III. THE CAVE OF THE RED HAND 38 IV. ABOUT SNAKES 51 V. LOST MAGGIE 65 VI. AN AUSTRALIAN DROUGHT 78 VII. AN AUSTRALIAN FLOOD 99 VIII. A BUSH GRAVE 121 IX. THE OLD CONVICT TIMES 139 X. PIONEERING 172 XI. PIGEON PARK 193 XII. A GOLD RUSH 213

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE "POOR CHUMMY BRISTLED LIKE A PORCUPINE" Frontispiece "WARRIGAL WAS BAGGED HIMSELF" 18 "THE BLACK FELLOWS WERE IN A VERY SAVAGE MOOD" 35 "ON THE ROCKY WALL A RED HAND" 40 "THE SNAKES' CORROBBOREE" 62 "H.M. DICK-A-DICK, KING OF THE POSSUM TRIBE" 72 "THE RUSHING FIRE WAS NOW STEERING STRAIGHT AT THEM" 92 "THEY FOUND THE FARMER CLINGING TO THE CHIMNEY" 112 "A ROUGH WOODEN CROSS SHOWED THEM A BUSH GRAVE" 126 "THE BLACKS RAISED A WILD HOWL AND FLED" 212 "MEN ON HORSEBACK WITH SADDLE-BAGS AND PISTOLS" 216

I. VENUS AND WARRIGAL.

"The impudent scoundrel! Just look at this, mamma. I should like to see him at it," exclaimed Sydney Lawson in great wrath, as he handed his mother a very dirty note which a shepherd had brought home. On coarse, crumpled grocer's paper these words were written in pencil: "Master sidney i Want your Mare the chesnit with the white starr soe You Send her to 3 Mile flat first thing Tomorrer Or i Shall Have to cum an Fetch Her.--Warrigal."

"Sam says," Sydney went on in rising rage, "that the fellow had the cheek to give it him just down by the slip-panels. He rode up to Sam and Paddy Fury as coolly as if he was coming up to spend the night at the house. If the great hulking fellows had a mite of pluck, they'd have knocked him off his horse, instead of taking orders from a chap like that. Paddy is fond enough of bragging about his foightin' when there's nobody to fight. But they're like all the people about here; three parts of them funk the bushrangers, and the rest are in league with them. He may well call himself Warrigal, the sneaking dingo! He wouldn't have been game to talk about sticking us up, if he hadn't known father was away. Send him my Venus! Mr. Warrigal must have gone cranky."

Sydney Lawson, who made this indignant speech at the tea-table of the Wonga-Wonga station (and almost made the hot potato-cake jump off the table with the thumps he gave it), was a tall, slim lad of fourteen. He and his mother had been left in charge of the station, whilst his father took a mob of cattle overland to Port Phillip. Sydney was very proud of having the key of the store, counting in the sheep, peppering mangled calves with strychnine to poison the native dogs that had mangled them, and riding about all day cracking his stock-whip, heading back store-bullocks that seemed inclined to make a rush at him, looking after the men, and when meat was wanted, driving the beast into the stock-yard himself, and shooting it with his own gun. Sydney thought himself a man now, and was very angry that Warrigal should think he could be frightened "like a baby."

This Warrigal was a bushranger, who, with one or two mates, wandered about in that part of New South Wales, doing pretty much as he liked. They stopped the mail, "bailed up" dray-men and horsemen on the road by the two and three dozen together; "stuck up" solitary stores, and publics, and stations, and once had been saucy enough to stick up a whole township. The police couldn't get hold of them. Some people said that the troopers were too lazy, and some that they were too cowardly. The truth was that the troopers did not know the bush like the bushrangers, and could not help themselves, as they could, to fresh horses when the ones they were riding were knocked up; and, besides, the bushrangers had "bush telegraphs"--spies who let them know where it was safe to rob, and did all they could to put the troopers on false scents.

The note that Sydney had received caused a good deal of excitement at the Wonga-Wonga tea-table. Miss Smith, who helped Mrs. Lawson in the house, and taught Sydney's sisters and his brother Harry, had not long come out from London, and was in a great fright.

"Oh, pray send him the horse, Master Sydney," she cried, "or we shall all be murdered in our beds. You've got so many horses, one can't make any difference."

All the little Lawsons instantly turned on Miss Smith, though she was their governess.

"I thought you English people were so brave," said satirical Miss Gertrude: "you make yourselves out to be in your history-books."

But Sydney, though Miss Smith had talked as if Venus was just like any common horse, was very fond of Miss Smith. She was pretty, and only five years older than himself. Besides, he was acting master of the house, and a little gentleman to boot. So he said,

"Be quiet, children; you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Miss Smith isn't used to the colony.--Don't be alarmed, Miss Smith. I will see that you come to no harm."

And then he began to talk to his mother about what they had better do. Just because he was a manly little fellow, he was not ashamed to take his mother's advice.

Now Mrs. Lawson was as little disposed as Sydney to let Mr. Warrigal do as he liked. She knew that her husband would have run the risk of being "stuck up," if he had been at home, rather than have obeyed the bushranger's orders, and that he would be very pleased if they could manage to defy the rascal. Still, it was a serious matter to provoke Messrs. Warrigal and Co. to pay the house a visit. She felt sure that Sydney would fight, and she meant to fire at the robbers herself if they came; but would she and Sydney be able to stand against three armed men? Not a shepherd or stockman or horsebreaker about the place was to be depended upon; and Ki Li, the Chinaman cook, though a very good kind of fellow, would certainly go to bed in his hut if the robbers came by day, and stay in bed if the robbers came by night. John Jones, the "new chum" ploughman, whose wife was Mrs. Lawson's servant, slept in the house, and he was too honest to band with the bushrangers in any way; "but then, he's such a sheep, you know, mamma," said Sydney.

There was time to send word to the police at Jerry's Town; but who was to go? Any of the men, except Ki Li and John Jones, would be as likely as not to go to Warrigal's camping-place instead of to the Jerry's Town police-barracks; and Ki Li would be afraid to go out in the dark, and John Jones would be afraid to ride anything but one of the plough horses, and that only at an amble. It wouldn't do for Sydney to leave the place, since he was the only male effective on it; so what was to be done? But little Harry had heard his mother and brother talking, and, as soon as he made out their difficulty, he looked up and said,

"Why, mamma, I can go. Syd, lend me your stock-whip, and let me have Guardsman."

Neither mother nor brother had any fear about Harry's horsemanship (up-country Australian boys can ride when they are not much bigger than monkeys), but they scarcely liked to turn the little fellow out for a long ride by night. However, he knew the way well enough. Three-Mile Flat didn't lie in his road, and if he didn't fall in with any of the Warrigal gang, nobody would harm him; and, finally, there was no one else to go to Jerry's Town who would or could go in time.

So Sydney went to the stable and slipped the bridle on Venus, and rode her down to the flat by the creek, to drive up Guardsman. And then he put the saddle and bridle on Guardsman and brought him round to the garden-gate, where Harry stood flicking about Sydney's stock-whip very impatiently, whilst his mamma kissed him and tied a comforter round his neck. Sydney gave Harry a leg up, and cantered with him to the slip-panels, to take them down for him.

As soon as he was through, Harry shouted "Good night," and gave Guardsman his head, and was off like a little wild boy. After one or two failures, that made his face tingle, he managed to crack Sydney's stock-whip almost as cleverly as Sydney could have done. It rang through the still moonlight bush, and when Sydney lost sight of him, Harry, tired of the monotony of flat riding, was steering Guardsman stem on for a grey log that glistened like frosted silver in the moonshine.

When Sydney had stabled Venus again, and--an unusual precaution--turned the key in the rusty padlock, and when he had given a look about the outbuildings, it was time for him to go in to supper and family prayers. He read the chapter, and Mrs. Lawson read the prayers. She was a brave woman, but, with her little girls about her, and her little boy away, she couldn't keep her voice from trembling a little when she said, "Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord; and by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night."

Then the girls kissed their mother and their brother, and said "Good night;" and Miss Smith kissed Mrs. Lawson, and said "Good night," and said "Good night" to Sydney without kissing him (though he looked as if he would have liked her to); and John Jones and his wife said "Good night, ma'am," "Good night, sir," just as if Sydney had been a grown-up master, and went to bed to snore like pigs, though they were dreadfully afraid of bushrangers. Sydney went into his mother's bed-room, and looked at the blunderbuss that stood by the bed-head (Mrs. Lawson had selected the blunderbuss as her weapon, because she thought she "must be sure to hit with that big thing"), and he showed her once more how to pull the trigger. Then he bade her "Good night," and went through the house, snacking the windows and fastening the shutters, though that was as unusual at Wonga-Wonga as locking the stable-door. And then he went along the verandah to his own little room at one end, where he locked himself in, and drew the charge of his gun and loaded it again, and looked at the chambers of his revolver, and put the caps on, and laid it down on a chair ready to his hand. When his preparations were completed, he said his prayers, and tumbled into bed with his clothes on, and slept like a top.

Harry wasn't expected home until next day. He had been told to sleep at the "Macquarie Arms," in Jerry's Town, when he had left his message at the barracks, and come home at his leisure in the morning. About four miles from Wonga-Wonga, the dreariest part of the road to Jerry's Town--begins a two miles' stretch of dismal scrub. Harry put his heels into Guardsman's sides to make him go even faster than he was going when they went into the scrub, and was pleased to hear a horse's hoofs coming towards him from the other end. He thought it was a neighbour riding home to the next station; but it was Warrigal. As soon as Harry pulled up Guardsman to chat for a minute, Warrigal laid hold of the bridle and pulled Harry on to the saddle before him.