Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boldrewood (epub read online books TXT) 📕

One of the young cows was a bit strange with me, so I had to shake a stick at her and sing out “Bail up” pretty rough before she’d put her head in. Aileen smiled something like her old self for a minute, and said⁠—

“That comes natural to you now, Dick, doesn’t it?”

I stared for a bit, and then burst out laughing. It was a rum go, wasn’t it? The same talk for cows and Christians. That’s how things get stuck into the talk in a new country. Some old hand like father, as had been assigned to a dairy settler, and spent all his mornings in the cowyard, had taken to the bush and tried his hand at sticking up people. When they came near enough of course he’d pop out from behind a tree in a rock, with his old musket or a pair of pistols, and when he wanted ’em to stop “Bail up, d⁠⸺ yer,” would come a deal quicker and more natural-like to his tongue than “Stand.” So “bail up” it was from that day to this, and there’ll have to be a deal of change in the ways of the colonies and them as come from ’em before anything else takes its place, between the man that’s got the arms and the man that’s got the money.

After we’d turned out the cows we put the milk into the little dairy. How proud Jim and I used to be because we dug out the cellar part, and built the sod wall round the slabs! Father put on the thatch; then it was as cool and clean as ever. Many a good drink of cold milk we had there in the summers that had passed away. Well, well, it’s no use thinking of those sort of things. They’re dead and gone, like a lot of other things and people⁠—like I shall be before long, if it comes to that.

We had breakfast pretty comfortable and cheerful. Mother looked pleased and glad to see me once more, and Aileen had got on her old face again, and was partly come round to her old ways.

After breakfast Aileen and I went into the garden and had a long talk over the plan we had chalked out for getting away to Queensland. I got out a map Starlight had made and showed her the way we were going to head, and why he thought it more likely to work than he had done before. I was to make my way down the Macquarie and across by Duck Creek, George’s station, Willaroon; start from there with a mob of cattle to Queensland as drover or anything that would suit my book.

Jim was to get on to one of the Murray River boats at Swan Hill, and stick to her till he got a chance to go up the Darling with an Adelaide boat to Bourke. He could get across from there by Cunnamulla towards Rockhampton, and from there we were safe to find plenty of vessels bound for the islands or San Francisco. We had hardly cared where, as far as that goes, as long as we got clear away from our own country.

As soon as Jeanie got a word from Jim that he’d sailed and was clear of Australia, she’d write up to Aileen, who was to go down to Melbourne, and take mother with her. They could stop with Jeanie until they got a message from San Francisco to say he’d safely arrived there. After that they could start by the first steamer. They’d have money enough to take their passages and something handsome in cash when they got to land.

Aileen agreed to it all, but in a curious sort of way. “It looked well,” she said, “and might be carried out, particularly as we were all going to work cautiously and with such a lot of preparation.” Everything that she could do would be done, we might be sure; but though she had prayed and sought aid from the Blessed Virgin and the saints⁠—fasting and on her bare knees, night after night⁠—she had not been able to get one gleam of consolation. Everything looked very dark, and she had a terrible feeling of anxiety and dread about the carrying it out. But she didn’t want to shake my courage, I could see; so she listened and smiled and cheered me up a bit at the end, and I rode away, thinking there was a good show for us after all.

I got back to the Hollow right enough, and for once in a way it seemed as if the luck was on our side. Maybe it was going to turn⁠—who was to know? There had been men who had been as deep in it as any of us that had got clean away to other countries and lived safe and comfortable to the day of their death⁠—didn’t die so soon either⁠—lived to a good round age, and had wives and children round them that never knew but what they’d been as good as the best. That wouldn’t be our case; but still if we once were able to put the sea between us and our old life the odds would be all in our favour instead of being a hundred to one that we weren’t placed and no takers.

Starlight was glad enough to see me back, and like everything he tackled, had been squaring it all for our getting away with head and hand. We wanted to take everything with us that could do us any good, naturally. Father and he had made it right with someone they knew at Turon to take the gold and give them a price for it⁠—not all it was worth, but something over three-fourths value. The rest he was to keep for his share, for trouble and risk. There was some risk, no doubt, in dealing with us,