An Outback Marriage by Banjo Paterson (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📕

“William Patrick Considine.”

Carew dashed out to his saddle, hurriedly unstrapped a valise, and brought in a small packet of papers.

“Here you are,” he said, opening one, and showing it to Gordon. “Those are the names, Patrick Henry Considine, son of William Patrick Considine. Entitled under his grandfather’s will⁠—by Jove, do you know there’s a lot of money waiting for you in England?”

“There’s what?”

“A lot of money left you. In England. Any amount of it. If you are the right man, you’re rich, don’t you know. Quite a wealthy man.”

“How much money d’you say, Mister?”

“Oh, a great deal. Thousands and thousands. Your grandfather left it. No one knew for certain where you were, or if you were alive.”

“I’m alive all right, I believe,” said Considine, staring hard at them. “But look, Mister⁠—you aren’t trying to take the loan of me? Is this straight?”

“Yes, it’s straight,” said Charlie. “You’ll have to go to England to make your claim good, I expect. It’s straight enough. That’s what brought Mr. Carew out here, to try and find you.”

For some time the bushman smoked in silence, looking at each man in turn, perhaps expecting them to laugh. He muttered once or twice to himself under his breath. Then he turned on Gordon again.

“Now, look here, Mr. Gordon, is this square? Because, if it ain’t, it’ll be a poor joke for some of you!”

“Man alive, why should we want to fool you? What good could it do us? It’s all right.”

“Well, if it’s all right, we’ll all have a drink on it. Here, Maggie, Lucy, Billy, come here. Get it pannikin. You won’t mind me treatin’ ’em with your rum, I suppose, Mister?” he said, turning to Gordon. “I don’t come in for a fortune every day, you know, and there ain’t a drop of lush in the place, only yours.”

“Fire away,” said Charlie.

“Come on, Lucy. Come on, Maggie. Where’s Ah Loy? Watch their faces, Mister, it’s as good as a play. Now then, ladies, I bin poor fella longa teatime, now rich feller longa bedtime. You savvy?”

The gins grinned uncomprehendingly, but held out their pannikins, and into each he poured a three-finger nip of raw overproof rum that would have burnt the palate of Satan himself. They swallowed it neat, in two or three quick gulps. The tears sprang to their eyes, and they contorted their faces into all sorts of shapes; but they disdained to take water after it.

“My word, that strong feller, eh?” said Considine. “Burn your mouth, I think it. Now then, Ah Loy, how much you wantee? That plenty, eh?”

Ah Loy peered into the tin pannikin with a dejected air, and turned it on one side to show that there wasn’t much in it.

“Here y’are, then,” said his boss. “Have a bit more. We don’t come in for a fortune every day. Watch him take it, Mister.”

Ah Loy put the fiery spirit to his lips, and began to drink in slow sips, as a connoisseur sips port wine.

“Good heavens,” said Carew, “it’ll burn the teeth out of his head.”

The Chinee sipped away, pausing to let the delicate fluid roll well into the tender part of his mouth and throat.

“Welly stlong!” he said at last; but he finished the lot. The two black boys had their share, and retired again to their camp. Then the three white men sat out in front of the house on some logs, smoking, and looking at the blazing stars.

Considine had fifty questions to ask, and the more Carew tried, the more helpless it was to explain things to him.

“D’you say there’s a house left me with this here money?”

“Yes,” replied Carew. “Beautiful old place. Old oaks, and all that sort of thing. You’ll like it, I’m sure. Used to be a pack of hounds there.”

“Ha!” said Considine with contempt. “I don’t think much of this huntin’ they have in England. Why, I knew a chap that couldn’t ride in timber a little, and he went to England and hunted, and d’you know what he said? He said he could have rode in front of the dogs all the way, if he’d have liked. But the owner of the dogs asked him not to, so he didn’t.”

“I suppose I could take Maggie and Lucy there,” he went on, looking doubtfully at his hearers. “They wouldn’t mind a chap havin’ a couple of black lady friends, would they? Yer see, they’ve stuck with me well, those two gins, and I wouldn’t like to leave ’em behind. They’d get into bad hands. They’re two as good handy gins as there is in the world. That little fat one⁠—you start her out with a bridle and enough tobacker after lost horses, and she’ll foller ’em till she gets ’em, if it takes a week. Camps out at night anywhere she can get water, and gets her own grub⁠—lizards and young birds, and things like that. There ain’t her equal as a horse-hunter in Australia. Maggie ain’t a bad gin after horses, but if she don’t find ’em first day, she won’t camp out⁠—she gets frightened. I’d like to take ’em with me, yer know.”

As he spoke the two moleskin-trousered, cotton-shirted little figures passed in front of the hut. “There they go,” he said. “Two real good gins. Now, as man to man, you wouldn’t arst me to turn them loose, would you?”

Carew looked rather embarrassed, and smoked some time before answering.

“Well, of course,” he said at last, “they’d put up with a good deal from you, bein’ an Australian, don’t you know. Fashion just now to make a lot of fuss over Australian chappies, whatever they do. But two black women⁠—rather a large order. You might get married over there, and then these two black ladies⁠—”

He was interrupted by a startled exclamation from Considine. “Married!” he said. “Married! I forgot all about my wife. I am married!”

“What!” said Charlie. “Are you married?”

“Yairs. Married. Yairs! Should just think I was.”

“Not to a lubra, I suppose?”

“Lubra, no! A hot-tempered faggot of a