"Hadn't seen so many together since he
was a nipper"; and after we had introduced him to our favourites, we
played with our new toys like a parcel of children, until supper time.
When supper was over we lit the lamp, and shutting doors and windows,
shut the Sanguine Scot in with us, and made believe we were living once
more within sound of the rumble of a great city. Childish behaviour, no
doubt, but to be expected from folk who can find entertainment in the
going to bed of fowls; but when the heart is happy it forgets to grow
old.
"A lighted lamp and closed doors, and the outside world is what you will
it to be," the Maluka theorised, and to disprove it Mac drew attention to
the distant booming of the bells that swung from the neck of his grazing
bullocks.
"The city clocks," we said. "We hear them distinctly at night."
But the night was full of sounds all around the homestead, and Mac,
determined to mock, joined in with the "Song of the Frogs."
"Quart pot! Qua-rt-pot!" he croaked, as they sang outside in rumbling
monotone.
"The roll of the tramcars," the Maluka interpreted gravely, as the long
flowing gutturals blended into each other; and Mac's mood suddenly
changing he entered into our sport, and soon put us to shame in
make-believing; spoke of "pining for a breath of fresh air"; "hoped" to
get away from the grime and dust of the city as soon as the session was
over; wondered how he would shape "at camping out," with an irrepressible
chuckle. "Often thought I'd like to try it," he said, and invited us to
help him make up a camping party. "Be a change for us city chaps," he
suggested; and then exploding at what he called his "tomfoolery," set the
dining-net all a-quivering and shaking.
"Gone clean dilly, I believe," he declared, after thinking that he had
"better be making a move for the last train."
Then, mounting his waiting horse, he splashed through the creek again,
and disappeared into the moonlit grove of pandanus palms beyond it.
The waggons spelled for two days at the Warlochs, and we saw much of the
"Macs." Then they decided to "push on"; for not only were others farther
"in" waiting for the waggons, but daily the dry stages were getting
longer and drier; and the shorter his dry stages are, the better a
bullock-puncher likes them.
With well-nursed bullocks, and a full complement of them - the "Macs" had
twenty-two per waggon for their dry stages - a "thirty-five-mile dry" can
be "rushed," the waggoners getting under way by three o'clock one
afternoon, travelling all night with a spell or two for the bullocks by
the way, and "punching" them into water within twenty-four hours.
