Tom Gerrard

“Yes, he’s locked up in the spare room.”

“What did he do?”

“Put a saddle on the brindle bull calf, and tried to make it backjump.”

“Did it?”

“Oh, yes, beautifully, and Jim had his forehead cut, and a lot of blood came.”

Gerrard laughed as he put down his pipe, “And what did Uncle Westonley say?”

“Uncle Westonley is away in Sydney,” said the child gravely, and as she spoke her eyes filled with tears.

Gerrard understood. “Well, never mind, Mary; now you and I shall go and get these pippies.”

From his saddle dees he took a pair of green-hide hobbles, lifted off the saddle with its valise, hobbled the horse, and then holding the child’s hand in his, set out towards the beach.

“Now, Mary, you and I are going to have a great old time. First of all, you are going to show me how you get pippies. Then we will come back and cook them, and have some tea and some damper as well, for I have both in my saddle-bags, and I have a wood duck too, which I shot this morning. Did you see it?”

“Yes, Uncle Tom; and your gun, too. Jim loves guns.”

“Does he, my chick? Jim must be a man after my own heart.”

“What’s that, Uncle Tom?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you some day. Now come along for the pippies. You show me how you get them, and I’ll show you how I get them.”

Holding his hand, the child led him down through the wild, sweet-smelling littoral scrub by a cattle track to the beach, where before them lay the blue Pacific, shining under the rays of the afternoon sun. The tide was low, and the “pippies” (cockles) were easily had, for they protruded their suckers out upon every few inches of the sand. Gerrard, booted and spurred as he was, went into the water, dug into the sand with his hands, and helped the child to fill the basket she carried, and then, realising that she was excited, and being himself determined upon a certain course of action, he walked slowly back with her to where he had left the horses.

“Mary, dear, just sit down, and listen to me. I am not going to Marumbah to-night, and you must stay with me. We shall be there early in the morning.”

“Oh, Uncle Tom! Aunt Elizabeth will punish me.”

“Don’t be afraid, chick—she won’t. I will explain everything to her in the morning.”

In a few minutes he had lit two fires, and when the coals were glowing on one, and the child was attending to the roasting of the pippies, he was boiling a billy of tea on the other, and laying out some cold salt beef and damper from his saddle-bags.

“Come, chick, you and I are going to have a great time to-night, as I told you, pippies and wild duck, and tea and damper, and after that is over you shall be tucked up in my blankets, and sleep until we hear the bell-birds calling to us in the morning.”

“Aunt Elizabeth–”

“That’s all right, chick. Aunt Elizabeth will have nothing to say about it. I’ll settle with her. Now, sit down on that blanket—I daresay you’re hungry, eh?”

“Please, Uncle Tom, let me go home, Aunt Elizabeth–”

“We’ll go home, chick, when the bell-birds and the crockets begin to sing. And Aunt Elizabeth won’t say a word to you.” He smiled somewhat grimly to himself, “don’t be afraid of that. You and I are camping out tonight—like two old mates. By-the-way, where do you sleep at Marumbah?”

“In the little room, just off the saddle-room.”

“And Jim?”

“Oh, Aunt Elizabeth doesn’t like him to sleep in the house, so he sleeps in the stockman’s spare room.”

“How old is he, chick?”

The child bent her head in thought for a moment or two. “About ten, I think, Uncle Tom. He is really and truly such a good boy—Uncle Westonley says so, but Aunt Elizabeth says he is godless and an ‘incubus.’ What does incubus mean? I am one too.”

“Nothing, nothing very much, little one,” said Gerrard, as he held the breast of the wild duck he had plucked over the glowing coals of his fire; “you see, your Aunt Elizabeth doesn’t mean to be unkind to you—it’s only her way of saying that you and Jim are troublesome at times. And I don’t think she will call you or Jim ‘incubuses,’ any more after to-morrow. Now, let us have something to eat. See, it is nearly dark.”

They ate their supper to the murmur of the ever-sounding surf upon the beach, and then Gerrard spreading out his blankets under the shelter of a spreading wild honeysuckle, covered the child over with a sheet of waterproof cloth to keep off the dew.

“I must say my prayers, Uncle Tom.” “Yes, dear,” he said softly, “but you needn’t get up. Can’t you say them lying down?”

“Oh, no, Uncle Tom. That would be very wrong, and denotes laziness, Aunt Elizabeth says. Do you say your prayers lying down?”

“Yes, chick,” was the prompt response, “generally when I’m lying down at night in the bush, looking up at the stars. And I daresay it does ‘denote laziness,’ as Aunt Elizabeth says. But at the same time I think it really doesn’t matter to God whether one is lying down or sitting up, or on one’s knees when we pray to Him.”

“Oh, Uncle Tom! Are you quite sure?”

“Dead sure, little woman—as sure as ducks are ducks—especially when little girls are tired.”

“Then I’ll say my prayers lying down.”

She clasped her two little sunbrowned hands together and said the Lord’s Prayer, and then paused.

“Shall I say the extrack?”

“The extrack?”

“Yes, the extrack from the Catechism. Aunt Elizabeth composed some of it.”

“Oh! she composed some of it, did she? Yes, by all means say ‘the extract.’”

The child closed her eyes again, and began very slowly:

“‘Before I slumber, O Lord, I comment myself to Thy care and protection, however unworthy and thoughtless my conduct has been during the day now closed.’” (“That’s Aunt Elizabeth,” muttered Gerrard under his breath.) “‘I will try hard to hasten my rebellious spirit,—no not hasten, but chasten—I always say that wrong, Uncle Tom—to reverently submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: to regulate my conduc’, and demean myself with all humility; to keep my hands from picking and stealing, to recollect that I may be called this night before, Thee to answer for my many sins and transgressions.’ That’s all Uncle Tom.”

Gerrard listened with the utmost gravity.

“That’s all right, Mary; but I think it is a bit too long a prayer for very little girls. Now, by and by, I’ll teach you a new prayer.”

“A new prayer! Oh, that will be nice! Sometimes Uncle Westonley let’s me pray for Bunny.”

“Who is Bunny?”

“My native bear. I’ll show him to you to-morrow. You see, when Uncle Westonley comes to see me at night, after Aunt Elizabeth has heard me say the Lord’s Prayer, and the extrack, he lets me pray for Bunny because he is full of ticks, and Jim says hell die. I say ‘dear God, don’t let Bunny die, freshen and preserve him in Thy sight, and make him whole.’ I got that out of a book, and Uncle Westonley says it will do very nicely.”

“Couldn’t be better, little woman. I think it’s a grand prayer.”