An Outback Marriage Banjo Paterson (philippa perry book .txt) đ
- Author: Banjo Paterson
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As she spoke, the tramp of a horseâs hoofs was heard in the yard and, looking out, Miss Grant saw a duplicate of Poss dismounting from a duplicate of Possâs horse. And Mrs. Gordon, looking over her shoulder, said, âHereâs Binjie. I thought heâd be here before long.â
âWhy do they call him Binjie?â asked Miss Grant, watching the new arrival tying up his horse. âWhat does it mean?â
âItâs a blackfellowâs word, meaning stomach,â said the old lady. âHe used to be very fat, and the name stuck to him. Good day, Binjie!â
âGood day, Mrs. Gordon. Hugh at home?â
âNo, he wonât be back till dark,â said the old lady. âWonât you let your horse go?â
âWell, I donât know if I can,â replied the new arrival thoughtfully. âIâve left Poss at home clearing the sheep out of that big paddock at the Crossing. Thereâs five thousand sheep, and no water there; Iâll have to go back and help him. I only came over to tell Hugh there were some of his weaners in the river paddock. I must go straight back, or Possâll make a row. Weâve a lot of work to do.â
âI think Poss is here,â said Mrs. Gordon.
âPoss is here, is he? Well, if that donât beat everything! And when we started to muster that paddock I went to the top, and he went the other way, and he reckoned to be at it all day. Heâs a nice fellow, he is! I wonder what the old manâll say?â
âOh, I expect he wonât mind very much. This is Mr. George Hunter, Miss Grant.â
Binjie extended much the same greeting as Poss had done; and by dinnertime that eveningâ âor, as it is always called in the bush, teatimeâ âthey had all made each otherâs acquaintance, and both the youths were worshipping at the new shrine.
At tea the talk flowed freely, and the two bush boys, shy at first, began to expand as Mary Grant talked to them. Put a pretty girl and a young and impressionable bushman together, and in the twinkling of an eye you have a Sir Galahad ready to do anything for the service of his lady.
Lightheartedly they consented to stay the night, in the hope of seeing Hugh, to deliver their message about the weanersâ âthey seemed to have satisfactorily arranged the question of mustering. And when Miss Grant said, âWonât your sheep be dying of thirst in that paddock, where there is no water?â both brothers replied, âOh, weâll be off at crack of dawn in the morning and fix âem up all right.â
âThey always say that,â said the old lady, âand generally stay three days. I expect theyâll make it four, now that youâre here.â
X A Lawyer in the BushGavan Blake, attorney and solicitor, sat in his office at Tarrong, opening his morningâs letters. The office was in a small weatherboard cottage in the âmain streetâ of Tarrong (at any rate it might fairly claim to be the main street, as it was the only street that had any houses in it). The front room, where he sat, was fitted up with a table and a set of pigeonholes full of dusty papers, a leather couch, a small fireproof safe, and a bookcase containing about equal proportions of law-books and novels. A few maps of Tarrong township and neighbouring stations hung on the walls. The wooden partition of the house only ran up to the rafters, and over it could plainly be heard his housekeeper scrubbing his bedroom. Across the little passage was his sitting-room, furnished in the style of most bachelorsâ rooms, an important item of furniture being a cupboard where whisky was always to be found. At the back of the main cottage were servantsâ quarters and kitchen. Behind the house, on a spare allotment, were two or three loose-boxes for racehorses, a saddle-room and a groomâs room. This was the whole establishment. A woman came in every day to do up his rooms from the hotel, where he had his meals. It was an inexpensive mode of life, but one that conduced to the drinking of a good many whiskies-and-sodas at the hotel with clients and casual callers, and to a good deal of card-playing and late hours. The racehorses, too, like most racehorses, ate up more money than they earned. So that Mr. Gavan Blake, though a clever man, with a good practice, always seemed to find himself hard up.
It was so on this particular morning. Every letter that he opened seemed to have some reference to money. One, from the local storekeeper, was a pretentious account embracing all sorts of itemsâ âammunition, stationery, saddlery and station supplies (the latter being on account of a small station that Blake had taken over for a bad debt, which seemed likely to turn out an equally bad asset). Station supplies, even for bad stations, run into a lot of money, and the store account was approaching a hundred pounds. Then there was a letter from a horse-trainer in Sydney to whom he had sent a racehorse, and though this animal had done such brilliant gallops that the trainer had three times telegraphed him that a race was a certaintyâ âonce he went so far as to say that the horse could stop to throw a somersault and still win the raceâ âon each occasion it had always come in among the ruck; and every time forty or fifty pounds of Blakeâs money had been lost in betting. For Blake
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