Chapter 20. Leather's Other Side

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_ CHAPTER TWENTY. LEATHER'S OTHER SIDE

"Well, Nic, what does all this mean?" said the doctor on the following day. "Brookes has been complaining to me that he was busy yesterday dressing those sheep, when he found Leather, as they call him, my assigned servant, lazy, careless, and insolent. He was speaking to him rather sharply, when you suddenly appeared from behind the fence, flew in a passion, abused him, defended the other man, talked in a way that would make Leather disobedient in the future, and finally ordered the man to go away and leave Brookes to do all the work himself. Now then, my boy, is this true?"

"Well, about half of it, father."

"I'm sorry to hear it, Nic, though I'm glad you are so frank," said the doctor, rather sternly. "You own to half. Now how much of the other half would be true if judged by an impartial observer?"

"I don't think any of it, father."

"Humph!" ejaculated the doctor. "This is a great pity, my boy. I cannot have dissension here at the station. Brookes is a valuable servant to me, where men with a character are very scarce. He is, I know, firm and severe to the blacks and to the convict labourers I have had from time to time, and I must warn you these assigned servants are not men of good character. Has this Leather been making advances toward you, and telling you some pitiful tale of his innocency to excite your compassion?"

"Oh no, father," cried Nic. "He has been as distant and surly to me as could be."

"Ah! There you see! The man is not well behaved."

"He works well, father, and was doing his best; but Brookes does nothing but bully and find fault, and he went on so yesterday at the poor fellow that at last I felt as if I couldn't bear it, and--and I'm afraid I got in a terrible passion and talked as if I were the master."

"I repeat what I said, Nic. I am very sorry, and I must ask you to be more careful. You say you played the master?"

"Yes, father."

"Very badly, my lad. He is a poor master who cannot govern his temper. Men under you always respect quiet firmness, and it will do more in ruling or governing than any amount of noisy bullying. There, I am not going to say any more."

"But you don't know, father, how cruelly he uses Leather."

"Neither do you, Nic, I'm afraid. You are young and chivalrous, and naturally, from your age, ready to magnify and resist what you look upon as oppression. There, be careful, my lad. I shall keep an eye on Leather and take notice for myself. As to Brookes, I shall leave matters to you. I do not ask you to apologise to him, but I should like you to run over yesterday's business in your own mind, and where you feel conscientiously that you were in the wrong I should like you to show Brookes that you regret that portion of what you said. One moment, and I've done. I want you to recollect that he is a man of fifty, while you are only about sixteen. Do we understand each other?"

"Oh yes, father," cried the boy, earnestly.

"Then that unpleasant business is at an end. Did you get your specimens yesterday?"

"No," cried Nic; "the quarrel yesterday upset me, and I could only go and wander about in the bush thinking about it. I did not shoot a bird."

"Then go and make up for it to-day," said the doctors smiling.

"But," said Nic, hesitating, "don't you want me, father--to begin work?"

"Yes, by-and-by; not yet. I should like you to have your run about the place for a week or two more--or a month, say. It will not be waste time. You cannot see what is going on about a station like this without learning a great deal that will be invaluable by-and-by. Of course I shall take you with me for a few runs or rides. By the way, did they finish emptying the waggon?"

"Oh yes, father; I saw that done, and kept account of the packages that came over in the _Northumbrian_. I didn't know the rest."

"That was businesslike, and the more so for its being done unasked."

"But Brookes didn't like my being there, father."

"Indeed!" said the doctor slowly. "And the other man--Samson?"

"He liked it, father. We're capital friends. I like him: he's such a rum old fellow."

"Well, you must get to like Brookes too. Now have your run."

Nic felt better, for the previous day's trouble had sat upon him like a nightmare. Hurrying to his room he took his gun, and leaving it at the door was guided by the voices to the big store-room, where Mrs Braydon and the girls were busy unpacking and arranging some of the stores brought by the waggon.

Here he was soon dismissed by his sisters, and after promising to be back in good time, he went off across the home part of the station, catching sight of Samson, Brookes, and a couple of the blacks busy over some task in an open shed, which task looked like the stacking up of bundles of wool rolled neatly together.

"I can't go and tell Brookes I'm sorry before them," thought Nic; "and I'm afraid I don't feel sorry. I suppose, though, I was a bit in the wrong. Father knows best; but he wouldn't have let Brookes speak like that. Brookes wouldn't have dared to do it."

The boy had got about a mile away from the station and into a part of the doctor's land which looked as if it had been carefully planted with trees, but his common sense told him that it must be in precisely the same condition as when he took up that part of the country; and after stopping to look round and admire the beauty of the place in every direction, he began to wish that he had brought the two dogs for a run.

"Father says that they are better at home, though, for a bit," he muttered, as he trudged on again, looking for birds or other game, but seeing nothing whatever, not so much as a snake.

His direction this time was parallel with the tremendous gorge whose edge he had stood upon to gaze down; and as in comparison the present part of the huge estate was, though beautiful, somewhat monotonous in its constant succession of large ornamental trees and grassy glades, he was beginning to wish that he had gone in the other direction, to explore the gully down into which Samson had guided him on the way to meet the waggon.

"I want to see that tree bridge, too, that we crossed. Never mind: that will do for another time."

Nic kept on in and out among the trees, glancing at his pocket compass from time to time, but satisfied of his ability to retrace his steps, for he was convinced that the huge gorge must be away to his left, so that if he kept it upon his right in returning he would be certain to come out correctly.

Every now and then he obtained a grand view of the mountains, with their prevailing tint of blue in the distance gradually becoming grey, yellowish brown, red, and of many delicious greens, as the great spurs, bluffs, and chasms came nearer and nearer till they plunged down into the gorge.

It looked to be a very fairyland of tempting mystery, waiting to be explored; and till the trees hid the towering eminences from his sight, he went on planning endless excursions for the future.

"But it does seem so strange," he said to himself at last, as he wiped his streaming forehead and stood in the shade of a great green tree, gazing up in its forest of boughs. "One would think that such an out-of-the-way place would swarm with birds and wild creatures; while except flies and beetles nothing seems to live here. Ah!" he cried at last.

For he had caught sight of something moving among the low scrubby bushes beyond the next tree, and softly cocking his gun he began to stalk it. But the next minute he had made up his mind not to fire at what would in all probability be a kangaroo.

"And I don't want kangaroos," he said; "I want birds." But he wanted to get as close as he could to the animal, and he stole on and on slowly for about fifty yards, till, as nearly as he could judge, whatever it was must be just beyond the next bushes.

Toward these he was creeping, when he started round with a quick jump, for some one had spoken.

"Are you looking for me, sir?"

There stood Leather bending over a sheep, whose fleece he was relieving of a strange growth of burrs and prickly, brambly strands with which the creature was tangled.

"No," said Nic, as soon as he had recovered from his surprise. "I did not know you were this way. What are you doing?"

"Shepherding, sir," said the man, with a sad, weary-looking smile, which half fascinated Nic, and he stared at one who seemed to be quite a different man. "The poor brutes get terribly tangled by these wild growths, and sheep are not very wise, sir. They're poor, helpless sort of creatures. As soon as they are helped out of one difficulty they get into another."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Nic, speaking as if he thoroughly understood sheep; though his knowledge of the popular old useful animal consisted in the facts that when they were young they were lambs, that they grew wool, and that when they were killed they became mutton.

They have so many diseases, too, sir, and so many enemies.

"What, the dingoes?" said Nic.

"Yes, they play the part of the wolf in Europe. It's astonishing how they have overrun the country."

Nic stared again, but averted his eyes for fear the man should notice it. This did not seem the Leather he had seen so much of on his way home and since.

"Are there no wolves, then, here?" he asked.

"No, sir, fortunately for the squatters; and it's a pity they introduced these dogs."

"They? Who did?"

"Impossible to say, sir. The captain of some ship, I suppose--perhaps of more than one ship; and they increased and multiplied till they run wild all over the land."

"Oh no; surely they must always have been here?" said Nic.

Leather shook his head.

"This is a land of surprises, sir," he said quietly. "There were hardly any, if any, animals here but the kangaroos and the like, when the place was first settled. Haven't you read all this?"

"No," said Nic; "I have only just left school. But there doesn't seem to be many even of them."

"Millions," said Leather, smiling, "if you know where to look for them."

"But I haven't seen one since I left home this morning."

"And perhaps passed dozens, sir, from large ones, bigger than I am, down to the kangaroo rats and mice, not much bigger than those at--in England."

Nic noticed the man's hesitation, but appeared not to heed it.

"But could you show me any of them?"

"Oh yes, sir, if you wish. They want looking for, but I spend so much time alone here in the bush that I get to know their habits. Some of the small ones are pretty little long-legged creatures. Wonderful jumpers too."

"And you call them all kangaroos?"

"Some people do, sir."

"Kangaroo! Why, that must be a native name."

"Haven't you heard about that, sir?"

"Heard what?"

"About their name, sir?"

"No--nothing."

"They say that when the first people met the blackfellows they asked them what they called the leaping creatures they saw hopping along so far on two legs, like animal grasshoppers; and the blacks said 'Kangaroo.'"

"Yes, I thought it would be a native name."

Leather smiled.

"No, sir; 'kangaroo' is the blackfellows' way of saying 'I don't know what you mean.'"

"Could you show me where I could shoot one of those Blue Mountain parrots, Leather?" said Nic, after a pause, during which the boy stood thoughtful and wondering at his companion's change of manner.

"Oh yes, I think so, sir. There are plenty about."

"I haven't seen one for days; when I did I had no gun; and besides, I was not ready to stuff it."

"This is not a good time of day to look after them, sir; but I dare say you have passed plenty."

"No--not one."

Leather smiled faintly.

"They are very quiet, like most birds in the heat of the day, and are sitting up among the leaves, huddled up and with their feathers all loose, so that you don't see the bright underpart, and their backs and sides are all green like the leaves. It wants practice to see them."

"When is the best time, then?"

"Early in the morning, when it is cool and fresh, and they are just off to feed. You hear them whistling and shrieking to each other then."

"But do you think you could show me one now?"

"I'll try if you like, sir," said Leather quietly. "One of the blacks would soon show you, but my eyes are not so well trained as theirs."

The man led on, and Nic followed on tiptoe, thinking of how different he was, and wondering why so strong a feeling of dislike to him had sprung up: why, too, a man of bad character and a convict should be able to speak so well and take so much interest in the things about him.

"You need not walk so carefully, sir," he said; "and you can talk. The birds will not fly off. They trust to their colours keeping them hidden. These sheep look well, sir."

"Yes," replied Nic, without glancing at the white-fleeced creatures feeding about, for he was thinking of the scene of the day before and felt afraid that Leather would allude to it.

But he did not, for he seemed disposed to talk quietly and respectfully of the different things about them as they went on through the openly wooded region for about a mile.

"Like honey, sir?" he said.

"Oh yes. Do people keep bees out here?"

"Well, sir," said Leather, smiling pleasantly, "Dame Nature does. There are plenty of wild bees. There's a nest up just above that fork."

He pointed to a spot about forty feet from the ground, where what appeared to be some flies were darting about a hole.

"Those are not bees," said Nic, gazing up at the place where the bark appeared to be split and a portion of the tree decayed.

"Yes, sir--Australian wild bees. They make plenty of delicious honey."

"Where you can't get at it!"

"Oh yes; a man who can climb would get it. The bark of these trees is soft and easily cut through."

"But the bees would sting him to death while he was doing it."

"If they could, sir; but these bees out here are harmless. I've seen the naked blacks climb up, with a piece of smouldering, smoking wood to drive the insects away, and then rob a nest. They would not have much protection from the insects if they were attacked."

"Well, no, not much," said Nic, laughing. "But the nests must be hard to find. You won't know that place again."

"Oh yes, sir," said Leather quietly, as he stood glancing up in the tree. "You see I brought you straight here. Besides, after seeing one of the blacks track the bees home it is very easy, for the country is so open. It is not like being in the dense scrub."

"How do they track them?" asked Nic.

"Catch a bee when it is busy in a flower, touch its back with a tiny speck of gum from one of the trees, and touch the gum with a tuft of that white silky wool--"; and he picked a scrap from the seed-vessel of one of the trees.

"And what good does that do?" asked Nic.

"Good, sir? The white cotton is easily seen when the bee flies homeward, the black chasing it till perhaps he loses it. But he has got nearer to the nest, and he will do this again with other bees, till he comes at last to the place where the nest is."

"And did you find that nest so?"

"Yes," said Leather quietly. "I lost sight of the first bee about forty yards away; the next bee I missed too, but the last showed me the way at once. Now, then: look straight up there."

"Oh, I can see them flying in and out plainly enough," replied Nic.

"I was not talking about the bees then, sir. I mean away to the right a little, and a good fifty feet higher."

"Don't see anything, only the sun coming through like silver rain."

"To the right of that, sir, where the leaves are thickest. Now can you see?"

"I can see where the leaves are thickest, that's all. What am I to look at?"

"The paroquets."

"What?" cried Nic excitedly, as he gave himself an aching sensation in the back of the neck from the awkward position he assumed: "I can't see anything."

"Look again, sir. They are hard to see. I can count six together, and one which seems to be a handsome cock bird, quite by itself."

"That's the one I want," said Nic in a whisper, as he cocked his gun and stood peering up in the part indicated, but only to have his eyes dazzled by the rays which shot down from above.

"You see it now, sir?" said Leather quietly.

"Nor; nothing but leaves and twigs--nothing else. Are you sure you can see the birds?"

"Yes, sir, quite. My eyes are more used to this sort of thing than yours. I have been so much alone in the bush, often with no companions but the sheep or the blacks."

"And are they friendly to you?"

"Oh yes; in their way, sir."

"But look here: are you really sure that you can see some of those parrots now?"

"Certain, sir," said Leather, smiling. "Try and follow my finger. There: now you can see them."

Nic had a long look, and then shook his head in despair.

"I'm sorry you cannot see them, sir. Would you like me to shoot that bird for you?"

"Yes," cried Nic, holding out his gun. "No!" he said, drawing it sharply back.

"Because you think, sir, it is a ruse on my part to get possession of your gun and then go off as a bushranger," said Leather bitterly.

Nic coloured deeply as a girl, but he tossed up his head.

"Well," he said sharply, "that's true; I could not help thinking it."

"I suppose not," said the man sadly. And he turned away.

"You know you got hold of me out there by the precipice and talked about dropping me over."

"Yes," said Leather, starting. "It was the act of a fool; but I felt very bitter that day, sir."

"And how do I know that you don't feel bitter to-day?"

"Hah! How indeed!" cried the man.

Nic hesitated a moment, and then, ashamed of his suspicions, he held out the gun.

"Shoot the bird for me," he said.

Leather looked at him keenly.

"I don't think so now," said Nic, as the man drew back frowning. "I want the bird. I can't see it. I know you wouldn't trick me."

The man snatched the gun almost fiercely, examining the priming; and it was hard work for Nic to stand fast and force himself not to believe that he had done a foolish thing. But he did stand firm and met Leather's flashing eyes.

He was not long kept in suspense, for, without a moment's hesitation, Leather took aim. There was a flash, a puff of smoke and loud report, and a bird came rustling down through the twigs and boughs.

"A fact--not a ruse, sir," said Leather bitterly, as he handed back the gun.

"I beg your pardon," said the boy excitedly; and the man looked at him in wonder.

"People do not beg pardon of convicts," he said very shortly; and, bending down over the spot where the bird had fallen, he carefully parted the low growth into which the specimen had dived head first, and then, taking the beautifully coloured little creature by the hooked beak, he tenderly drew it out with the feathers falling back into their places, and hardly showing a mark.

"That is about as perfect as one can be, I think, sir," said Leather quietly.

"Lovely!" cried Nic enthusiastically. "How am I to get it home safely?"

"Take hold of it by the beak, sir, a moment," replied Leather; and, being relieved of the bird, he looked round till his eyes lit upon a peculiar-looking grass, one of the waving strands of which he picked, drew through his hand, and then passed it through the bird's nostrils, twisted the ends together lightly, and handed the loop to Nic.

"That grass is nearly as tough as wire, sir," he said. "Carry it by that, letting it swing. Are you going to collect bird-skins, sir?"

"I'm going to try, Leather. I shall want to get a good white cockatoo," said Nic, eagerly plunging into the subject, so as to try and make up for the suspicion he had displayed.

"Oh yes, sir," said the man, who now showed not the slightest resentment. "There will be plenty of work for you in that way. You can get the sulphur crests, and those with orange crests, and the rose-coloured, and the pretty grey creamy-yellowish-cheeked birds which have the cockatoo's crest and the long tail of the paroquet."

"I don't know of these," said Nic eagerly.

"The country swarms with beautiful birds, sir, especially with those of the parrot tribe. There is the black cockatoo, for instance--not that you'll care for it."

"Why?" said Nic.

"Because it is ugly," said Leather, smiling, as if he enjoyed the boy's enthusiasm. "It is wanting in bright feathers, but it is a curious bird, with a tremendously strong beak."

"I must have a specimen, though," said Nic. "What others are there?"

"I can hardly tell you, sir. The parrots are in great variety. Stop: there are two grass parrots that I know of. One is a green bird striped all over across with a darker green, like the breast of a cuckoo or a hawk, and it has fairly long legs, which enable it to go about actively on the ground. Other parrots have, as you know, very short legs, only suitable for clinging and climbing in the trees."

"And the other--grass parrot you called it?"

"A lovely little creature, cross-barred like the ground parrot; but its colours are brilliant, and it is one of the most graceful-looking little birds of the kind."

"Why, Leather," cried Nic, "you are quite a naturalist! How do you know all this?"

"How could I help knowing, sir--spending days and weeks and months alone, out here in this great wild country, watching sheep or helping to hunt our stray cattle? What should I have done in a solitary bit of a hut without speaking to a fellow-creature perhaps for a month?"

"But you have not been like this?"

"Not since I have been at the Bluff, sir. When I came up the country to be Mr Dillon's servant I was almost constantly alone. They used to send me my rations now and then. It was a very solitary life."

"How lonely!"

"Yes, sir--lonely," said the man, with a tinge of bitterness in his tones; "but it had its advantages. There was no Brookes."

Nic started and looked keenly in the man's face; but he frowned and turned hastily away, as if angry at what he had said.

"I must be getting back to the sheep, sir," he said hurriedly. "They are terribly weak, foolish things, always catching some disease. I hope you will get your bird home safely, sir. I should skin it directly. Things so soon go bad out in this hot place."

He turned away in among the trees; and Nic walked off with his gun over his shoulder, very thoughtful as he picked his way in and out among the bushes, till, feeling hot, he rested his gun against a bough, and sat down in the shade of one of the thick-foliaged, huge-trunked trees which seemed an exception to the rest--so many being thin-leaved and casting very little shade.

He had laid his specimen carefully down upon the grass, and was gazing at it without seeing any of its beauties, when a sudden thought struck him, and he sprang up to carefully reload his gun and place it before him.

"Mustn't forget that," he muttered. "Never know what may happen."

He sat down again in the pleasant shade to inspect his trophy; but once more he did not see it, for the convict's face filled his mind's eye, that lowering, sun-browned, fierce countenance which lit up at times with a smile that was sad and full of pain, and at others was so bright that the deep lines in the man's face faded, and he became attractive.

"It's queer," said Nic to himself. "One minute you regularly hate the fellow, and feel half afraid of him; the next you quite like and feel as if it would be nice to know more about him. No, it wouldn't: he's a convict, and they warned me about him."

Nic became very thoughtful, and though his lovely Blue Mountain parrot, the object of his morning's walk, was close to his side, he did not glance at it, and the beautiful birds the convict had mentioned were for the time forgotten. For he found himself wondering what Leather had done, and why he had done it; whether he was a very bad man; and gradually found his head getting into quite a muddle of conflicting surmises.

"I wish I hadn't let him think I was suspicious," he said to himself. "He jumped at it directly. I suppose I showed it pretty plainly. But no wonder! Any one would have felt as I did. To hand over one's gun to a convict, and give him a chance to point it at you and say, 'Now then, hand over that powder flask and that belt and all your wads.' Of course, so that he could go off--bush-ranging, don't they call it? Why, it seemed a mad thing to do.

"And yet I did it," said Nic to himself, after a thoughtful pause; "and he didn't run off. Why, he acted just as a gentleman would under the circumstances. I did feel sorry for him. There, I don't care: he can't be such a bad fellow as old Brookes wants to make out. Brookes is an old beast! I'd tell him so for two pins."

Nic's thoughts were flowing very freely, and feeling quite excited he went on:

"He must have done something very bad, and he has been severely punished; then they let him come out from the gang to be an assigned servant, and he's trying hard to make up for the past, and when he gets bullied and ill-used it makes him look savage and fierce, of course.

"Well," said Nic, after a thoughtful pause, "I can keep him in his place and yet be civil to him. I'm not going to jump on a man because he has done wrong; and I don't see why he shouldn't be forgiven--if he deserves it, of course, and--somehow, though I don't like him, I seem to like him a good deal, and that's about as big a puzzle as some of the things in mathematics, and--" This next was aloud:

"Oh, murder! Needles and pins! Wasps and hornets! Oh!"

Nic had jumped up, to begin dancing about, slapping his legs, shaking his trousers, pulling off his shoes, and trying hard to get rid of something that was giving him intense pain.

"It's those bees!" he cried. "They've got up the legs of my trousers; and he said they had no stings. No! ants!--You nasty, miserable, abominable little wretches--no, big wretches," he muttered, as he picked off and crushed one by one the virulent creatures, which had made a lodgment upon his legs and evidently come to the conclusion that they were good to eat.

He soon freed himself; but the tingling, poisonous nature of their bites was still very evident, and excited an intense desire to rub and scratch.

"Why, there's quite a regiment of the little vicious wretches!" cried the boy as he was going back to where his gun stood by the tree. "I suppose they smelt me."

It seemed so for the moment, for a long line of the ants could be traced through the grass on and on; and then Nic uttered an exclamation, sprang forward and caught up his specimen, to hold it at arm's length and begin shaking it.

"Why, it's covered with them," he cried, as he swept them off, got them on his hands, saw them racing up his arms, and found them so quick and so tight-clinging that the task grew painful in the extreme before he could get rid of them, and when he did he tossed the rumpled, disfigured bird back amongst his enemies.

"There!" he cried: "eat it then. It's completely spoiled. What a pity I did not let it live!"

"Never mind, Nic," said his father that evening, as he sat at home, giving himself from time to time a vicious rub. "Take it as a lesson. We all have to go through that sort of thing, and you'll know better next time. But it was a fine specimen, you say?"

"Lovely," replied Nic eagerly; but he did not say a word about who shot the bird, for he felt that if he did his father would be annoyed. _

Read next: Chapter 21. A Day's Fishing

Read previous: Chapter 19. Nic Shows His Teeth

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