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They were, all of them, kind to me. I did the best I could to be a good little boy there; but I recollect Mrs. Channing's face of sorrow and distress when, one day at dinner, I upset into my lap my plate, which she had just filled with Irish stew one of my best-loved dishes. "Frank never does that," she murmured, as she wiped me up; "never-never!"
You must out with it here and now. Listen to me, Peggy," he went on, sinking his voice suddenly and looking hard at her. "I've got to know all about this. It's no use keeping anything back. Were you ever married to William Grant?" Peggy dropped her voice too. "Yis. I was married twenty-five years ago at a place called Pike's pub, out in the Never-never country."
There was something in the rejected suitor's countenance something in the tone of voice, which would have touched any heart softer than stone; and Alaric's heart had not as yet been so hardened by the world as to render him callous to the sight of such grief as this. 'Take my word for it, Harry, she'll think better of it in a month or two, he said. 'Never-never; I am sure of it.
The old man roared over the sketch, but the housekeeper bore her a grudge for it, and afterwards had not a good word for the 'Ladyship' who had slipped out of her proper sphere into the Never-Never country. There were plenty of other small adventures which would have made the hair of Lady Gaverick and her friends stand on end. A dream-drive indeed, full of sort of 'Alice in Wonderland' episodes.
The fore-cabin was kept clean; the assistant steward was good-humoured and obliging; his chief was civil enough to freeze the Never-Never country; but the bill of fare was monotonous. During the afternoon a first-salooner made himself obnoxious by swelling round for'ard.
The country got prettier swelling pastures and stony pinches and a distant outline of hills. They could see the green line of a water course. 'Plenty water sit down along a creek? McKeith asked the black boy. But Cudgee shook his woolly head. 'Ba'al* mine think it, Massa. No rain plenty long time. McKeith sighed. The dark shadow of coming drought is a fearsome spectre on the Never-Never Land.
Then discovering that one of the "mates" was a woman, backed a few steps, dazed and open-mouthed a woman, dough to the elbows, pounding blithely at a huge damper, being an unusual sight in a night camp in the heart of one of the cattle runs in the Never-Never. "We're conducting a cooking class," the Maluka explained, amused at the man's consternation.
But there's something in the paper about Lady Tallant being ill and having an operation. Poor chap! He wouldn't have been bothering much about strikes in the Never-Never and the supremacy of the British Crown, any more than I should in similar circumstances.... Well, there! I must go and bogey*. Sudden compunction overswept Bridget. 'Oh, Colin!
He was equally at home in the clubs of London and the Continent, the Grand Hotel at Yokohama, and the selector's shanties in the Never-Never country. He had shot big game in Siam, pearled in the Paumotus, visited Tolstoy, seen the Passion Play, and crossed the Andes on mule-back; while he was a living directory of the fever holes of West Africa.
She cam now along the veranda from the Old Humpey with the light, rather hurried tread he remembered, talking rapidly when she joined him. 'I've been seeing about your room. I suppose you know enough now of the Never-Never to understand that we are quite primitive in our habits. You won't find a spring mattress or water laid on or any other convenience of civilisation.
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